


Take the Heat Out of Me

by quipquipquip



Category: Batman (Comics), Nightwing (Comic)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-13
Updated: 2012-09-23
Packaged: 2017-10-31 03:06:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 81,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/339179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quipquipquip/pseuds/quipquipquip
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lost Days!Jason trolls Officer Grayson!Dick in Blüdhaven. Dick counter-trolls with the power of love. (It's super effective.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Не дай мне сгореть](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5307695) by [timmy_failure](https://archiveofourown.org/users/timmy_failure/pseuds/timmy_failure)



If the 'Haven and Gotham were girls in a bar, Blüdhaven would've been the ugly friend. It was seedier, all of the filth and none of the glitz. In the late summer, it stank of brine and sweat and garbage, the kind of thick artificial pollution that could choke someone to death. The only thing that Blüdhaven had going for it, Jason figured, was the sunsets. The air pollution made the sun burn in bronze and roses as it set---when it was clear enough to see, and if you weren't so trapped by the canopy of buildings, you could see it.

There was no sunset today, no sun at all. A storm had been stewing moodily for most of the day, the daylight runny and thin through the cloud cover. Jason came out early, figuring that it was dark enough for his type of work. Darkness was a mindset sometimes, not a state of daylight. Gotham’s spires cast long shadows, and the ‘Haven crouched in the thickest stretch. 

He didn’t visit Blüdhaven often. It was pretty much the furthest thing from a vacationing spot, and he’d had better things to do with his time than pace outside of Gotham’s city limits. His last year of ‘education’ had dragged him to much more interesting and worldly climes. 

But Jason was between international terrorist playdates, so he sort of found his way back near Gotham. He couldn’t go back to the city itself---not there, not yet, not until he was _ready_ \---but Blüdhaven was close. He justified this poopchute of a vacation destination by keeping his eyes and ears open for any big fish swimming around. There were several of them that trawled rotten, hard-knock towns like Blüdhaven in order to pick up temporary ballast. Even the most sophisticated players needed a certain amount of hired muscle, and many complimented their hand-picked minions with some poor, uneducated, desperate lackies. Those were the ones who were cut free and sacrificed when they needed to make a getaway. 

Those were the true sad sacks. Jason was toying with the idea of passing himself off as one of them for a week or two, feigning stupidity and clumsiness until he saw an opportunity to prove that sometimes, the smallest players had the biggest teeth. He wasn’t quite sure why the idea appealed to him---maybe it was his disgust for the cycle of poverty that drove many of those ‘expendables’ to crime, or maybe it would’ve been a little bit of retribution for his father.

His real father. The expendable, sad sack of a criminal that still drummed up some pity in him---though it usually got drowned by rage and abandonment. 

Jason took his time in the ‘Haven, since he didn’t have a set schedule or purpose. It was his birthday, and he thought that he might as well celebrate a little. He was pretty sure that it was his eighteenth birthday, but he wasn’t positive. That was a hell of a thing, not knowing such a big thing about yourself---but Jason was getting used to finding gaps and holes in his head. Dead guys didn't get birthdays, so he figured he should be grateful or something. He bought himself a chilidog with the works, shared the slightly stale bun with some diseased-looking pigeons, then got his first pack of legally purchased cigarettes. The ID itself was fake, but he felt like it was as close to legality as he got.

Smoking was a small, regular act of rebellion. He smoked because he wanted to smoke. He smoked because nobody could tell him not to smoke. He smoked because he had the freedom, the presence of mind, and the memory required to have an addiction. Every cigarette was proof of control, a conscious choice to do what he wanted with his life---even shorten it.

Jason sat on a rusty fire escape, legs dangling over the edge, and smoked. He watched humanity putter down below. There was a drug deal going down, and they thought they were being real sly and clever about it. It was cute, in a way. In Blüdhaven, you didn’t have to be slick to get away with murder---literally and figuratively---because the authorities were just as crooked as the crooks themselves. Calling them upholders of the law was almost laughable, because the corruption went to the department’s very core. It was positive proof that almost anyone could be bought, and in such a depressed economy, the asking price had dropped to an all-time low. 

When a squad car rolled up, he snorted, tapped another cigarette from the pack, lit it, and settled in to watch. 

It was some kind of mad luck---not good, not bad, just fucking _insane_ \---that the officers who answered the call were as far from corrupted as humanly possible. 

Jason forgot to breathe, until his smoke-filled lungs seized up. He couldn’t get a good look at the cops from his angle, but he _knew_ the smaller of the two. 

He’d know him anywhere, no matter what he was doing or what he was wearing. Jason had spent three solid years cataloging his every movement and quirk and replicating them to the best of his abilities. He wouldn’t have been able to forget him if he’d tried---and he had. God, he had. He’d run through a whole dirtbag menagerie of teachers to emulate, but sometimes he still fell back on the light footwork and acrobatics of the first Robin. 

He’d switched out bright jewel tones for beat blues, but that was Dick Grayson. No doubt about it. 

Jason wondered what the hell he was doing in Blüdhaven, much less what the hell he was playing at with the civilian hero angle. He had money coming out his ears, training far superior to anything that the police academy would’ve given him, and a mask of pseudo-anonymity to hide behind---so why forget all that and shove off to a worse town and a worse position? 

Bruce had put him there. He’d put money on that bet. Either he’d sent him to Blüdhaven for a case, or he’d driven him there by being his vastly disappointing self.

The dealers scattered, and Dick and his partner went after them. Watching him _run_ made Jason feel electrified; the hair on his arms stood on end, his skin tingling with the rush of seeing one of the best of the best move. 

Dick was holding himself back, but not by much. Jason hadn’t realized that watching him was something that he’d missed, but it opened up this weird ache in his chest that he didn’t know what to do with.  

Jason looked at the squad car. Thought about it. Did a little math in his head. 

Yeah, he had time. Even if Officer Grayson and his pal caught up with the alleged drug dealers, it’d take them a while to process them. 

This wasn’t the plan. This was nowhere near the plan. 

But fuck it. It was his birthday, and he wanted to raise a little hell. 

 

*

 

“I cannot believe this,” Dick’s partner burst out, loud enough that his voice easily carried up to Jason’s perch. “Can you believe this?” 

“I have a high capacity for belief in the unbelievable,” Dick said with a wry grin that knotted up Jay’s stomach something awful. “Gothamite, remember?” 

“Yeah, yeah,” he said, rolling his wrist. “You’re from Gotham, and that means you’ve seen it all. Including disappearing squad car tires.”

Jason was an old hand at vehicular sabotage, so it hadn’t taken him long to strip the car---and to add insult to injury, he’d done it with their own tire iron. Because Jason Todd loved him a little irony. 

“I didn’t say that,” Dick said, with surprising levity for a police officer who’d just gotten his wheels lifted. He even laughed. “Nothing really surprises me anymore, that’s all. What we have here is a particularly gutsy thief. They worked fast, too. Our perp’s either really lucky or really good.”

His partner sighed heavily. “I really can’t believe this.”   

Jason shifted his weight forward, hanging onto the rail with one hand. Warm, foul mugginess wafted up from the cooling asphalt. He whistled---one sharp, high chip, followed by two softer, throatier notes. 

_Peek-tut-tut!_

It was a bird call, and one that he hadn’t used in a long time. Turned out that not many international terrorists were big on bird watching, so some of his more obscure skills had gotten dusty.

Not too dusty, though. Dick went completely still, his head canted toward him. Listening. 

Jason ran the tip of his tongue over his bottom lip, wetting it, before repeating the whistle. 

_PEEK-tut-tut. PEEEEK-tut-tut!_

A normal person wouldn’t have heard it, and if they had, they would’ve dismissed it. Nature was a beautiful mystery, to be marveled at and distanced from. If they heard the bird call, they’d sigh wistfully at the endurance of the wild world, hearty enough to exist in a place as rank and godless as the ‘Haven. 

But Dick Grayson wasn’t normal. Dick spoke fluent bird, so he knew that the song was anything but natural. It was from a diurnal bird, and one that’d started migrating south to overwinter at the beginning of the month. He knew that _peek-tut-tut_ was a low-level warning alarm, a friendly call to inform all of its little feathered friends that there could _possibly_ be a predator hanging around. 

Dick knew, because he knew all about robins. He’d been the one who’d taught Jason, after all. They’d only had a few good months before the end, but they’d been real good. They’d bonded over chilidogs and bird calls, Bruce’s moodiness and Alfred’s sandwiches. 

But then Dick had gone on a space adventure, and Jason had died. 

“Call it in,” he said, and started walking toward Jason’s perch. “I’ll take a look around.” 

“What’m I supposed to tell dispatch?” His partner asked, sounding faintly hysterical. “I can’t say that someone jacked our tires. Can I?” 

“Honesty is the best policy,” Dick advised, fucking boyscout that he was. He hung at the edge of the alleyway, frowning absently at the shape of the shadows. 

Jason repeated the call for a third time, then waited. Curiosity seemed to get the better of Dick, and he followed the robin call. A normal person---a normal _cop_ \---would have waited for backup the way he’d been trained, armed with a flashlight at the very least. But Dickiebird was used to flying solo through the dark, and he was momentarily too perplexed to act like a good normal cop. Jason wondered how he fooled anyone, ever. 

The tires were stacked neatly just inside the alleyway, the tire iron on top of them. It wasn't a crowbar, but hey: he hadn't planned on a rousing game of psychological torture, so he had to work with what he had on hand.

Dick wore his heart on his sleeve and his thoughts on his face. When he wasn't actively controlling his outward response or pasting on a grin to hide what was percolating underneath, he broadcasted.

When he saw the tires, he stopped. He stood very, very still. Jason would've sworn he stopped breathing for a few seconds.

Good. It was nice to know that someone remembered the details of the tragic tale of Jason Todd. If he'd carted off the tires, the symmetry might've been a niggling little memory at the back of Dick's head, easily suppressed. But the tires had been removed and left.

And nobody did that. Nobody would go through that much effort and risk for no profit. But profit hadn't been Jason's aim, naturally. His payoff was the awful, anguished look on Dick's face.

He watched him rub the heels of his hands over his eyes, shoulders rising and falling as he took a couple deep breaths. Shit, he could basically _hear_ him coach himself into keeping it together.

Thunder grumbled in the distance, and it started to rain. Summer rain was a relief, a wet climax after an uncomfortably muggy day. Jason was glad that he'd opted to wear his thin hooded sweatshirt, despite the warmth of the evening. He pulled up the hood as the raindrops thickened from an irregular smattering to an earnest drizzle.

Dick spent a still, reverent minute just staring at those damn tires while he got rained on. Jason might've been touched, had he been able to beat back his natural cynicism. Maybe Dick was thinking about the Robin that'd fallen out of the nest, but it was more likely that he was just trying to figure out how he was going to get the squad car off the cinder blocks.

The thunder rumbled again, this time much closer. Dick turned to double back to his partner. Jason pressed his lips together and called again before he could really think about what he was doing, or what would come next.

He just...he wasn't done yet. He wasn't satisfied by Dick making sad faces at a pile of tires. It wasn't enough. Not enough schadenfreude, not enough proof that he was still remembered.

Dick zeroed in on him with the kind of precision that only one of _their_ kind of people could boast. 

He made sure that he got as good of a look at him as the long shadows would allow. Between the milky half-light of the rain and the hood, he wouldn’t be able to see him clearly enough to tell for certain who he was. Hopefully, he’d see just enough to prickle under his skin and cost him a few hours’ worth of sleep. 

He kicked his legs like a little kid, grinning from the depths of his hood. 

“Problem, officer?” 

And yeah, maybe that was a bad way to start out, but he couldn’t help himself. This kind of opportunity didn’t present itself often---or ever. 

“Do you know anything about this?” Dick asked, in his very best Officer of The Law voice. It took everything in Jay not to crack up. 

He just rolled his shoulders in a negligent shrug. 

“I’m going to have to ask you to come down here,” he said, still in that big authoritative man voice. 

“Of course,” Jason said silkily, jumping over the railing and landing with a heavy and definitive _thump._ “Whatever you say, officer.” 

He realized something beautiful as he straightened. It made it worth the risk, and could’ve been a birthday present all on its own. He was _taller_ than Dick. By four inches, at least. Officer Grayson had to tilt his head up to look at him, and that alone was a birthday gift from the universe. 

Dick had always joked that he was put together funny. At fifteen, Jason had been short and skinny, with stubbornly curly hair, strong thighs, and enormous feet. He’d had bigger feet than Dick, who teased him about having to special order giant pixie boots. Jason had maintained that it meant that he’d get tall sooner or later, and he’d been right. 

The simple satisfaction of outgrowing his predecessor warmed the cockles of his stunted heart. 

Dick gave him a critical once-over, frowning. That gut instinct of his must’ve been screaming and throwing fits, because he didn’t even give him a chance to deny involvement with the tires. He just frowned a little deeper, and said, “Turn around and lace your hands above your head.” 

That didn’t sound much like something a normal police officer would say, but Jason let it pass. 

He decided then and there that he was going to give him shit. He was going to give him _so much_ shit. He obediently turned around, bracing his linked hands behind his head. Dick stood behind him, one leg between his. 

“Nice evening for a good frisking, don’t you think?” Jason asked as he leaned him back, holding his clasped hands together and starting his pat-down with the other. Fat raindrops fell on his upturned face. “Gosh, officer, you’ve got the prettiest eyes. I mean it. Hold me tight, you dreamboat---I’m thiiiiiis close to swooning.” 

Dick opened his mouth to fire off a reply or a quip or another round of Authority Figure Says, but then his fingers found the shoulder holster Jason had underneath his jacket. His too-blue eyes narrowed. 

“Now, I know what you’re thinking. But Officer Grayson, how can you find it in yourself to fault me, when you’re _packing?”_ He took a breath. Let him realize that yes, he knew his name. Ground the dirt in a little more. “My, my. The _bossman_ can’t be happy about that.”

He sort of wished the lighting was better, because he would’ve loved to have gotten the full impact of the realization as it bloomed on Dick’s face.  

“Why, Officer Grayson, I do declare that you look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Jason chirped with a savage grin. “And here I thought that you had a high capacity for belief in the unbelievable.” 

“You---” Dick stopped himself, swallowing thickly. “--- _how_ can you---?” 

His grin widened. 

“As much fun as this has been,” he drawled. “I think I’m going to choose to resist arrest. You won’t have to bother with Mirandizing me.” 

And before Dick could gather himself enough to react, Jason broke his hold, gave him a jaunty salute, and took off. Wearing those slick-soled standard-issue shoes, he didn’t have a chance of catching up to him. Not when Jason immediately swung up a fire escape and took to the rooftops. 

It hadn’t been the plan, but rattling his chain had still felt pretty good. If he was lucky, Dick would be left wondering if the whole thing had actually happened. Jason Todd had died, and as far as they knew, his death had stuck. Hell, _he_ didn’t even know how he’d come back, so they’d be plumb out of luck as far as explanations went. There were some things too impossible for the World’s Greatest Detective to break down into manageable chunks of easily digested logic. Dick would have no evidence that it was really _him_ , save for the maddening, flimsy details he’d left him with. Was that perplexing big man really the little boy he’d taken to Brent’s every other Tuesday, in costume or out? He’d never know. Not until Jason was ready, at least.  

He didn’t have to run hard, but he did anyway. He had to get his nerves back down to a manageable level somehow, since his blood was singing with the high that only a surge of adrenaline could bring. It was a little bit hilarious that this mild run-in had given him more of a rush than anything his trainers had put him through over the last six months. This was his version of playing with fire.

Jason jumped the gap between buildings, rolling and leaping back into motion without stopping. 

Then he heard the sound of someone doing the exact same thing, right behind him. He twisted, throwing a quick glance over his shoulder. 

And there was Dick Grayson, eating up the distance between them. He’d kicked off his shoes and pursued him barefoot. 

Right. Of course he had. _Fucking acrobat._  

He’d always been faster than him. Gravity seemed to roll off Dick Grayson like water on a duck’s feathers, and he’d been running full tilt the whole time. 

Leaping, Dick grabbed him. Caught hold of his arm, really dug his fingers in. In one swift movement, he slung his other arm around his neck and took him down in a sloppy, painful tackle. It was a desperation move, and Jason would’ve bet that it hurt him just as much. Still, it got the job done. They skidded on the rooftop, rolling, angles and arms and knees and elbows.

Shit. Shit, shit, _shit._

Jason struggled, but Dick got him into an agonizing pin, twisting his arm behind his back. Everything in him screamed at him to buck it, to move, to get out of there because this was too soon, this was wrong, this ruined everything that he’d been working toward for months because Dick would tell Bruce and he wasn’t ready for Bruce yet, he just wasn’t, he needed to do this right because---because he _had to_ , and this had been a stupid fucking idea and---

“Jason!” Dick said, sucking in hard breaths from exertion. “Stop. Please!” 

Well, this had turned into a fine crock of grade-A crap. He’d figure a way out of it, but it’d take time and planning. He’d have to retool his approach, but he could do that. Jason was nothing if not flexible and excellent at working on the fly. 

“Dammit, Jay! Look at me!” 

And Jason did. He twisted, still panting, and found Dick grinning at him hugely. 

He looked happy. _Relieved._

He was happy to see him?

Yeah. He was. Truly and honestly.  

And that took the fight right out of him.  

Dick didn’t know where he’d been or what he’d done. He couldn’t smell the blood on his hands. The line hadn’t left any marks when he’d crossed over it. Dick didn’t know, so he was happy to see him. For a few seconds, at least.

“It really is you, isn’t it? You’re alive. How did you---where have you---Bruce is gonna--- _god_ , Jay,” Dick rambled, almost hysterical. He couldn’t finish any of his thoughts, his quips reduced to jagged little exclamations. “What happened to you? 

“Oh, you know. I died,” he muttered into the wet, rough grit of the rooftop. “I look pretty good for a zombie, huh.”

Dick laughed. 

Jason didn’t.  


	2. Chapter 2

By the time Dick's shift ended, it was absolutely pouring. The rain fell in heavy sheets, soaking Jason's hair through the hood. He'd been waiting on the roof of 1013 Parkthorne Avenue for a solid two hours, trying to make some sense of what he should do now that the revenant cat was out of the bag. He'd made Dick promise not to call Bruce to tell him the 'good' news, and he was relatively sure that good ol' Dickiebird would keep to his word. Honesty was a thing with him---probably a coping mechanism from having to live a quadruple flip of a life. Dick Grayson: circus boy, Richard Grayson: Wayne heir, Officer Grayson: can-do rookie, and Nightwing: Blüdhaven's protector had a timeshare with his body, and even he had to have trouble juggling all four balls. 

Jason didn't have that problem. As a street kid, he'd always skated close to being nobody. Death had been the literal nail in the coffin---officially, he didn't exist. Jason Peter Todd was dead, and someone else was keeping the Robin uniform warm. Jason was _just_ Jason, and that wasn't much at all. It'd be enough for Bruce, but that was him getting ahead of himself again. 

His immediate problems had to be dealt with first. Disappearing before Dick finished his shift was a nice idea in theory, but he knew what would happen. Dick would go running home to tell dad what he'd seen at work that day, and Bruce wouldn't stop until he'd turned over every goddamn stone on the planet. Jason had to keep his head if he wanted to keep control of the situation. 

He mentally dragged a thick red line through _Plan A: Get The Hell Out of Dodge_. 

_Get Rid of the Witness_ was Plan B, he reflected grimly as he watched the sodden mass of humanity flow on the streets below. As soon as Jason touched the thought, felt it out in his head, he had to drop it. 

It wasn’t an option. Sure, Dick was the only loose end, but clipping him would instantly bring Bruce in on dark wings of vengeance. There were only a few people capable of snuffing Dick Grayson, and even fewer who’d be able to pull it off in his own home. Bruce would analyze every square inch of the apartment. He’d know. He’d know that Dick had let him in, and that he’d been killed by someone he’d trusted. The list of suspects would be impossibly short. He’d briefly flirted with the idea of ending it on the rooftop, but his partner would’ve heard the shot and found his body. Dead rookie cops who just happened to be the adopted sons of billionaires made big news. For that reason alone, Jason accepted that this wasn't going to be a problem that he solved with a well-placed bullet. 

Because he wasn’t ready to be big news. Not just yet. 

And if he was going to be honest with himself, he didn’t like the idea of killing him. Dick was good---better than he was, better than he could be---and Jason refused to kill anyone who didn’t deserve their punched ticket. Talia and her family, they murdered people. What he did was pest removal. He wasn’t like them. He didn’t _like_ what he did, but he recognized that someone had to do it. 

That was the line that he drew. He never pulled the trigger without thinking. Collateral damage happened, and he accepted that, but he did what he could to minimize it. He just didn’t let it cripple him. Bruce had a strangling net of limitations, but Jason only had guidelines. 

So, silencing him was out. _Plan C: Beat the Bird Out of Dickie_ was likewise shelved---he was pretty sure that he could take him in hand-to-hand, but hurting him to prove what a bad man he'd grown up to be would be the marriage of the worst parts of plans A and B. If someone put Dick into the ICU, Bruce would find whoever had done it. Because Dick was Dick. Not Jason. 

He was still gathering up the threads to weave together a Plan D when he heard Dick approach him from behind. He was as light-footed as ever, but Jason had spent the last couple of years with people who would've dearly loved to bury a knife between his shoulderblades. He'd gotten _good_ at watching his own back. He'd had to. 

"I know that I didn't give you the key to the front door," Dick said, grinning lopsidedly. He was still in his uniform, but he'd changed into running shoes. Basically, he looked like an idiot. "But I thought you'd get that telling you where I live was an invitation to go inside and get warm. You didn't have to sit out here in the rain." 

Jason shrugged. The rain wasn't cold. It was just very, very wet. 

"Breaking and entering? Perish the thought. That'd just be _rude_ , Boy Wonder." 

Honestly, he hadn't wanted to prowl around Dick's apartment alone for two hours. He hadn't wanted to indulge his curiosity, hadn't wanted to see all the weirdly intimate details of his day to day life. 

Dick sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "Anyway. Sorry that I couldn't just cut and run. How about I make us some coffee and you tell me how the hell it is that you're alive and in my city?" 

Blüdhaven was _his_ city? Cute. Jason shrugged again, since Plan D was still a work in progress. 

"If you've got a coupla hours, sure. It's complicated." 

"I know how that goes."

"Complicated by _our_ standards," he clarified. 

If that put Dick on edge, he didn't let it show. He just popped open the roof exit, which led down almost directly to apartment 3A. They just loved their caves and hideyholes. It might've looked like a normal apartment, but Jason would've put money on it being fully outfitted with secret spaces and all of the creature comforts a vigilante might need. 

"I thought most officers leave their uniforms at work," Jason said as Dick fumbled around his pockets for the key to his front door. He probably didn't use it as often as the windows.

"We recently had some killer dismissals and funding cuts. There'll be no laundry service until further notice. I've been trying to sweet talk Alfie into stopping by to do my ironing, but no dice so far." Dick heaved a dramatic sigh. "Ironing is _hard."_

Dismissals? Jason suddenly understood what Dick was doing on the force. He was taking _them_ to the cleaners. The crooked cops wouldn't last long with him hounding their every move. 

That sounded like the kind of assignment Bruce would issue to get Dick out of his hair. And Dick would leap on it as a chance to prove what a good, loyal boy he was. 

It made Jason's stomach churn unpleasantly. He really should've worked harder on coming up with a Plan D. 

“I still can’t believe that you didn’t come inside,” Dick said as he opened the door and ushered him in. “You’re soaking wet. Gimme a sec---I’ll get you a towel and a change of clothes.” 

Dick’s place was small, and the apartment building itself was halfway to falling apart. He wasn’t surprised that the former Boy Wonder had chosen to surround himself with poor people---he needed to be useful, he needed to be wanted, and he needed simple human contact. Bruce needed silence and solitude to function, but his first partner was the exact opposite. He’d never fit in with normal people, though. As unique as he was, and as much a showman, Dick was an entertaining, impossibly kind oddity. He needed an audience, and the best kind of audience was one that needed him right back.

“I’m...not sure if any of this will fit you, but it’s better than nothing,” he said, passing him a pair of baggy sweats, a t-shirt, and a towel. “Bathroom’s down the hall. Toss your wet stuff in the dryer.”

“Thanks,” Jason said, because what the fuck else was there for him to say? Dick was either honestly taking his return in stride, or he was too shocked to process the enormity of it. He was just smiling and nodding and generally pretending that Jason hadn’t been worm chow the last he’d heard. 

The bathroom was small, the fixtures old. It wasn’t dirty, but it was just as cluttered as the rest of the place---a pair of Dick’s boxerbriefs were hung up with the towels, and the cap was off the toothpaste. He contemplated dunking his toothbrush in the toilet, but that was his senseless antagonism speaking. Some nameless part of himself almost resented Dick for the way he was treating him. He couldn’t really be that happy, that accepting, that willing to believe it was really _him._

He stripped down, peeling off his wet layers, and roughly toweled his hair dry. Snagging the boxers from the towel rack, he pulled them on, as well as the rest of the stuff Dick had given him. He folded his jacket over his arm---he wouldn’t be giving _that_ up, since it held most of his weaponry in the various pockets---and tried to move.

The clothes didn’t fit him right. The sweats were probably loose on Dick, but even slung low on his hips, they rode well above his ankles. The sweats were snug around his thighs and ass, the boxerbriefs uncomfortably tight. He really was bigger than Dick, now. A lot bigger. 

There were a pair of fuzzy pink handcuffs on the back of the toilet---Dickie was terrible at keeping track of his toys, superheroly and otherwise, without Alfred around to pick up after him. After a moment’s thought, Jason picked up the cuffs and dropped them into one of the deep pockets in his coat. 

Just in case. You could never tell when cuffs would come in handy. 

The dryer was at the end of the hall. He put his clothes in and turned it on, feeling the warm hum of it against his palms. It was all so distressingly _normal_. This was supposed to be a fight---a confrontation. He’d been planning for it for years, now. Life couldn’t just go back to the way it’d been before the big boom. That wasn’t an option. He’d been through too much for it not to show. 

The Pit had healed his mind, but his body hadn’t forgotten all of its scars. His hair grew out snow white over his right eye. He had flash burns, and long, glossy trails of stitches. The Joker really had beaten him into a bloody goddamn pulp. He didn’t get to forget it, so neither should they. 

“Oh,” Dick said when he joined him in the living room again. His voice was small and weird and strangled. “You’ve, uh. Grown more than I thought. Can you even breathe in that shirt?” 

“Kinda,” Jason shrugged, sitting down on the couch. It did feel like the t-shirt would bust its seams if he lifted his arms or flexed his back. He didn’t mind the thought as much as he should have. 

The boy acrobat hadn’t changed much, Jason thought as he watched Dick putter around his small, messy kitchen. He’d said that he’d make coffee, but as far as Jason could tell, all he was doing was opening and closing cupboards and hopping from one counter to another. He was like a little kid on a sugar high, jittering with energy that he didn’t know what to do with. He wouldn’t stop smiling, and he kept glancing back into the living room, just to make sure that Jay was still there. It was a valid enough worry. If he could’ve thought up a Plan D, he would’ve already gotten out of there. 

“Hey!” Dick said with a big, dumb grin. “I just realized something. It’s your birthday today, isn’t it?” 

Of course he’d remember. Of course he would. 

“Yeah. For a couple more hours. Funny old world, ain’t it?”

Dick just laughed. “That’s great. Seriously, that’s great.” Disappearing back into the kitchen, he called, “How’ll you take your caffeine? Coffee, or would you like a mocha? Don’t know if you still have that sweet tooth.” 

Of course he’d remember. Of course he would. 

Fucking boyscout. 

“Mocha,” he sighed, letting the back of his head hit the couch. He stared blankly at the ceiling and tried to think. There had to be a way out of this with minimal collateral damage. He just wasn't seeing it. He had knockout capsules tucked into one of the many pockets inside his jacket, but he didn't trust their amnesiac side-effects against Dick's memory. He also had about five different kinds of poisons squirreled away on his person, but they were all too lethal to be suitable. 

Taunting Dick had been a bad idea. What had made him think that stealing the tires off his car would be any different from the last time he'd lifted a Bat-person's wheels? The first time, it'd sucked him into the vigilante's life. Unsurprisingly, the repeat performance was doing the exact same thing. 

Dick came back with a mug in each hand. The one that he passed to Jason was topped with whipped cream and sprinkles. 

“Happy birthday,” he announced. When Jason just kind of eyed the mug distrustfully, he laughed again. “C’mon, don’t tell me you’re too old for rainbow sprinkles. Nobody is too old for celebratory rainbow sprinkles.” 

It was surreal. Jason had put a lot of time and energy into imagining what it'd be like to reveal himself to Bruce, Alfred, Dick, and his knobby-kneed little replacement, but none of his mental scenarios had gone like this. 

This was too easy. Too mundane. The way Dick was treating him, he might as well have just come back from a lengthy and unannounced vacation. 

Jason took a sip of the mocha, licking a whipped cream smudge from the corner of his mouth. 

Dick drummed his fingers against his kneecaps, waiting for him to say something. Jason didn’t give him the satisfaction---he just drank his mocha and idly thought about which window would be the easiest to bolt out of. 

"So," he began, awkwardly transparent. Ah, they were going to Talk About It. "You're alive." 

"Looks that way, yeah," Jason agreed mildly, taking another sip of his drink.

"How did we miss this?” Dick asked. He sounded baffled, almost apologetic. “How did it happen? Where've you _been_ this whole time?" 

"Don't know, don't care, and I dunno---around? I've been around. Here, there, and everywhere,” he said with a grand sweep of his arm. He could hear some stitches pop in his borrowed t-shirt. “Been expanding my horizons."

"Seriously, Jason. You were autopsied.” Dick paused, gnawing on his lower lip. “You were _dead."_

His voice cracked when he said _dead_. Kind of heartwarming, in a way. 

"I got better," Jason said nonchalantly, finishing off his mocha and wiping his mouth on the back of his hand. 

"Please. I need to know." 

"What do you need to know? Do you _need_ to know if I'm the real deal? Funny---you invite me into your home before you even bother to check if I'm legit." 

"I know you're you," Dick said, and he sounded bizarrely sad about it. "I don't doubt that one bit." 

He almost asked him how he could be so sure---what if he was Clayface? What if he was some dark magical thing that Bruce had pissed off?---but he didn’t want to know what it was that Dick saw in him that confirmed his authenticity. He didn’t want to know which parts of Jason Todd, age fifteen and three-quarters, the Joker hadn’t beaten out of him. 

“Fine. It was aliens. No, no---it was an angel. Yep. It was an angel. They said something about it not being my time, and I told the white light to fuck itself, and here we are.” 

_“Jason.”_

“Okay, okay. You got me,” Jason said, hands raised in treaty. He cleared his throat. “Here’s the hand to God truth: I just woke up in my coffin one day and crawled on out.”

"This isn’t funny,” Dick said, and Jay started laughing. Jason laughed, because the truth was stranger than fiction could ever be. He laughed, because his resurrection had been reduced to a punchline. His choices were to scream about it, to cry about it, or to laugh about it. So he laughed. 

“I’m not joking,” he said, leaning his elbows on his knees and looking up at Dick through his lashes. “Digging through six feet of dirt with your bare hands is no laughing matter.”

Dick just stared at him mutely. He dug his hands through his hair. 

“I need---" He paused, frustrated, and amended himself. Dick examined the bottom of his mug instead of looking him in the eye. "I _want_ to know why you didn't come home after you 'got better'." 

"Thought about it," Jason murmured---and he had. When Talia had first cut him free, when he'd been overwhelmed and sick and confused, his first impulse had been to go to Gotham and demand an explanation from Bruce. "But someone was already wearing my duds. Didn’t take him long to get a new baby bird, did it? Fuck, it’s like a spoiled kid getting a new puppy after the stray he took in got hit by a car. Did it make it _easier_ for him?”

Dick tensed, his eyes snapping back up. He stared at him, jaw squared.

“Are you kidding me?" He demanded sharply. "Do you know how the 'new puppy' got the gig? Because he didn’t get adopted. He followed the Batman home.”

Jason hadn't been expecting that. Talia had shown him the pictures---a manila envelope that had been fat with shot after shot of the smiling boy at Batman's side---but her explanation had ended there. He'd been replaced. That was what it'd all boiled down to. Bruce had replaced him, because he was capable of dropping ballast and moving on. 

“What?” 

Dick rubbed his forehead tiredly. “He figured out that Bruce Wayne was Batman and that I was Nightwing, all on his own. Fourteen years old, neurotic as they come, and _dedicated._ Bruce never recovered from your loss. It was---it was _bad_. This kid saw that Batman was slowly losing it, so he demanded to be his Robin. Not only did he ID him, he just...he figured him out. Batman needs a Robin.” 

And that’s when Jason’s self-control and patience evaporated. 

“He _had_ a Robin. He couldn’t keep that one alive, so he doesn’t deserve another one.” 

“Listen---” 

“No,” Jason snarled, “You listen to me. He’s not good enough. He holds himself back, and that’s not good enough for Gotham. It’s a great idea on paper, but in the real world? It doesn’t cut it. Criminals get back out, and more and more people die.”

“Jason,” Dick said, his brows beetled with confusion. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying that enough’s enough,” he said, flinging each hard syllable like blunt weapons. “I didn’t come back from the dead to pretend that everything is just fine. Nobody bothered to avenge me, so I had to come back and do it myself. And I aim to, Dickiebird. I’m going to get my vengeance, and there’s nothing you can do about that.”

Dick had always had good instincts. He followed them, too---more than his head, usually. That was the aerialist in him, Jason figured. He had to know when to move, and he could never, ever hesitate. So he was ready for him, even though Jason didn’t telegraph his attack. He was already bracing to block him by the time he threw the first punch; he took the hit, absorbed the brunt of it, and then shot out for a quick jab. Dick was smaller than him now, sure, but he was still faster. 

Their bodies reflected the lives they had chosen to lead after they hung up the scaly shorts and the pixie boots. Dick was an acrobat, a man used to working with others---he was lean and compact and quick. Jason was solid through his core, thicker and stronger and fully capable of digging his heels in and plowing ahead like the damn tank he was. Dick was used to working with a powerhouse, the quick-footed distraction that was first in the fray. Jason didn’t have anyone he could rely on, so he had to be able to take a beating just as well as he gave one. 

And oh, he could take a licking. 

So Dick landed the first punch, but Jason took it. He held every ace in a hand-to-hand match with his predecessor---it was a lot harder to punch up than punch down, and Jason had him on height, weight, strength, endurance, and reach. Letting him come at him was a gentlemanly nod, since hitting first was the only advantage that Dickie had. He blocked, and he braced himself, and he endured it, because Dick would eventually slip up. He’d give him an opening, and he’d end it. 

And he did. Dick left his upper body unguarded for half a second, and Jason launched himself at him. He wrapped one hand around his throat, pushing all of his weight behind it. The seams of the sleeves of his shirt tore with an oddly satisfying _rip_. They crashed into the coffee table, Dick pinned beneath him. The table held for all of a fraction of a moment, then collapsed with a groan of overtaxed plywood. Ikea didn’t build coffee tables capable of holding their joint weight. 

Jason grinned triumphantly. He quickly grabbed the handcuffs from his pocket, slapping one end to the couch and the other to Dick’s wrist. 

The fuzzy handcuffs ratcheted shut with a rapid metallic click. Dick's eyes widened. He tugged at them experimentally, testing their hold. And of course they held. Dick _really_ should have known better than to leave his toys out. 

Dick’s chest heaved, and when he could spit the words out, he demanded: "What the hell is this?"

"My exit strategy," Jason said, sparing him the quick tilt of a smirk as he got up.

Dick glared at him from the remains of his flattened coffee table. 

"These aren't going to hold me long." 

He knew that. Standard handcuffs were child's play for them. It was the principle of the thing, really. 

"Plenty long enough for me to disappear. It's been fun, Dickie---I mean that from the heart," Jason said, a hand spread over his chest. Bruce would likely be able to lift hair and epithelial samples from the clothes in Dick's dryer, but whatever. Maybe he was ready for Bruce to find him. Maybe this was the way it was meant to go. "But the truth is, they laid me to rest in the Pet Semetary. And wouldn't you know it, I didn't come back right."

 _"C'mon,"_ Dick said, and the strange desperation in his voice balled up Jason's heart and lungs. "You're really going to leave me like this? All these years, and this is how you’re gonna bow back out again?"

He was baiting him. Trying to get him to engage, which would burn up what little time he had before he managed to free himself. Jason should’ve just said yes, grabbed his jacket, and left, but he just---he couldn’t yet. Couldn’t let this one just lie. 

He’d been off-book since he’d taken the tires off the squad car.

"This isn't your first time being tied up by a bad guy. Jesus. With how often you used to get trussed up by rogues, I kinda thought you liked it."

"Maybe I do," Dick replied evenly, not looking away.

Jason struggled to swallow. His mouth had gone very dry. What the hell was he supposed to say to that, even? He should leave. Get out of there until he started thinking straight again. 

"So," Dick repeated in that same calm, even tone. "Are you really going to leave me like this?"

"Yeah," Jason said, not as positively as he would've liked.

"You don't have to do it right now, do you?" After a pause and a heaved sigh, he added, "I've spent years wishing I had another chance with you---because I wasn't there. I know that. I wasn't there when you needed help, but I am this time. I don't know what you've gotten yourself into, but it's---you---"

“I don’t blame you,” said Jason. The forgiveness just kind of slipped out of him. “Is that what you want to hear?” 

Dick made a low noise of frustration. "We don’t do vengeance, Jay. We can’t. I know you know that. You came here because you _want_ me to stop you. You're still you, and you've always been a good kid."

Jason barked a high, choked-off laugh.

"A good kid? I didn’t come here for an intervention, old chum. You can't even imagine how far I've gone. And I don't regret a damn thing."

"Bullshit," Dick said emphatically.

"You wanna know? You really _wanna know?”_ Jason growled, grabbing him again. He honestly thought that this was a cry for help? That he’d come there to be _saved?_ What a fucking boy scout. “I've been filling in all the gaps, Dickie. I've been in the restricted section of the library, and it's been a real gas."

The tabletop creaked with his added weight. Jason leaned over him, one hand spread over his chest, the other clamping down on his windpipe. Not enough to choke him out---just enough to make him fight for air. 

“Story time, Dickiebird. Once upon a time, Bruce Wayne decided that he was going to make the world a better place. So he went around the world, spending years learning everything he could from all the great masters. I did the same thing---the same damn thing. I’ve been all over, learning everything that Bruce _didn’t_ teach us.” He settled his considerable bulk on Dick’s stomach. His ribs trembled with his shallow attempts at breathing, but Jason’s weight was crushing his lungs. “Lethal combat strikes. Demolitions. Toxins. Small arms. Sniping. I've been buying time with the best and brightest of all of the dirtbags in the whole wide world. And when I'm done learning what they have to show me, I clean up after myself.” 

Such a pretty little euphemism. So accurate. 

Jason curled over him, his voice low and conversational. Dick’s nostrils flared as he tried to breathe. 

“Two days ago, I was learning from this German guy, Egon. A real piece of work, that Egon. I did a little snooping around his compound, and you’ll never guess what I found. Kids. Forty-two of them, all under the age of ten. Drugged to the gills and ready to be sold off to pedophiles with deep pockets. You know what Batman would’ve done, don’t you? Yeah, you do. He would’ve incapacitated the goons, then left the whole mess for international politics to fumble. But me? I did that he _should’ve_ done. I poisoned Egon. Killed his men. Dropped the kids off at the British embassy. Burned the whole place to the ground. Nobody even knows that I was there---the day was saved, justice was served, and for once, none of the filth managed to seep out through the cracks in the system.” His blunt nails dug into his forearms, but he didn’t look away. "So. Are you still going to tell me that I'm not 'too far gone'?"

"No,” Dick wheezed, with effort. “You're not."

"I'm going to kill him," Jason hissed between clenched teeth, pushing his full weight against Dick's chest. His heart was beating like mad, and he gurgled as his air supply was completely cut off. "Him, and that fucking clown. And I'm going to make sure that he _knows_ it was me, and he knows why."

Dick couldn't drag in a full breath, but the question was in his eyes.

"Because he's a relic. Flawed." His own heart slammed in his temples. "He says he's out to avenge the innocent. So what? Was I not _innocent enough_ to be avenged? 'Cause if it'd been Bruce---if it'd been you---I would have stopped at nothing to avenge you. Because---because I guess I have this funny little idea of what it means to be loyal." Jason's breath hitched. He throat felt too tight, too hot, like he was the one getting strangled. He'd never said it all aloud. Talia wouldn't get it, and he hadn't had to answer to anyone else. He'd been saving it for Bruce, but Dick would be his dry run. "I should've been the last one. Should've been the last life Joker took. _I should've been enough of a reason!"_

It was anyone's guess how long it'd been since Dick had jimmied open the cuffs, but he chose that moment to break free of them.

He grabbed him, dragging in a deep, shuddering breath. Jason fought, throwing a wild punch, but he wasn't thinking straight. Dick blocked easily, smacked his hand away, and wrapped his arms around him. It was one part grapple, one part desperate hug. He held on suffocatingly tight, fists bunched in the back of Jason's shirt. He wrung the air out of him. 

"I'm sorry, Jay. I'm so sorry."

“Don’t,” Jason croaked, trying to pull away. It was almost a plea. _Don't do this to me. Don't touch me. Don't feel sorry for me. Don't you fucking dare._

“Listen to me," he said, though he didn't strictly need to tell him. Whether or not he liked it, Jason had always listened when he spoke. Dick commanded the attention of the people around him, a lifelong showman. "You don’t know how Bruce was after he lost you. You don’t know how close he got to the edge.” 

“He should’ve done it," he snarled, face pushed awkwardly against Dick's chest. "Joker doesn’t deserve to live.”

“If he’d killed Joker, Batman would’ve died, too. The police work with us because we don’t carry out our version of the law. If Batman killed, the GCPD would hunt him down and prosecute him just like every other homicidal maniac. Do you really want that, Jason? Are you willing to put him to death because he didn’t get there in time?”

He didn't get it. He actually thought that he'd kill Bruce out of some twisted form of entitlement. He thought that he was that petty. 

“It’s not about that," Jason snapped. "I forgave him for that. Forgave him a long time ago. As far as I can tell, _this_ is what I came back to do. I'm going to be the Batman he can't be. I just want him to see what he made before I replace him. I want him to remember me.” 

He'd thought he'd remember. He should have. 

“Remember you?" Dick demanded, his voice climbing with the upward turn of his question and then cracking. "Your suit’s in a memorial case, on display where he has to see it every day. He’s _never_ forgotten and hasn't ever stopped punishing himself, because you're his son. He loves you, Jay---we all do. What is it going to take to get you to believe that?” 

What a nice delusion. Too bad it was just that. 

“Fuck you,” Jason swore tiredly, pushing him away roughly. Boy Wonder could hope and pretend all he wanted, but he knew better. He knew how far he’d fallen, because each step down had been deliberate. There’d be no doubling back. Bruce wouldn’t let him. Bruce would not forgive him for taking Talia’s hand and following her down a darker path. 

“Okay,” Dick said, and started unbuttoning his shirt.

“Are you kidding?"

And he probably had been joking, Jason realized---at least partially. That was what Dick did when he felt a situation spiraling out of his control: he changed the dynamic and the tone by clowning around. He'd probably just been taking advantage of the accidental set up for a joke that Jason had given him, but that half-hidden smirk quickly evaporated. 

Jason had meant to sound aggressive and scoffing, but his surprise had twisted everything all up. His demand had come out raw and shaky and angry and hurt. He hadn't meant to let that much out, but being around Dick had worn him thin in places. He hadn't been prepared for direct contact with his old life. He hadn't anticipated the memories having so many serrated edges. He hadn't been ready for Dick, just like he wasn't ready for Bruce. His armor was still patchy. They could still get to him. 

Dick had to have heard it in his voice, because he stopped moving, fingers frozen mid-unbutton. 

"Jay," he said quietly, sympathetically, blue eyes earnest. 

The pity lit Jason up. 

He didn't want it. Didn't need it. Couldn't stand it. 

"Don't," he snarled, and crawled back.

Dick couldn't empathize, because he couldn't possibly understand what he'd gone through. All he saw was the bobbing tip of the iceberg, not the jagged, dangerous mass underneath. 

Dick was fast. He sprung to his feet like the damn acrobat that he was, carrying the momentum and using it to push against Jason’s chest. The backs of his legs hit the edge of the couch, and he overbalanced backward. Dick grabbed a fistful of his hair and mashed his mouth against his---he kissed him. 

Nobody had really kissed him before. His mother---his non-biological one, the one that'd provided more than a dead end in a warehouse---had kissed his cheek and forehead and the tip of his nose before she put him to bed, but those memories were so flimsy and worn, he wasn't sure if they were real or just wishful thinking that'd gathered a desperate weight of believability over the years. Kissing was private, the tingling pressure of lips, the edges of teeth and jawlines, and the slickness of saliva. Jason lightly bit Dick's fat lower lip, rolling it between his teeth, just to hear the sound he made when he tugged. It was low and deep and satisfied, rumbling in his throat.

He discovered that he liked kissing. It shouldn't have been a lightbulb moment, but it was. 

Dick helped him pull off his ripped shirt, leaving damp, open-mouthed kisses wherever he found lumpy scar tissue. Jason jerked at his too-tight sweats, trying to get them down past his thighs; his stiffening dick took the borrowed clothes from uncomfortable to painful. Dick pulled back, frowning. 

“Are those my briefs?” 

“Souvenir,” Jason explained, yanking open Dick’s uniform shirt with a spray of buttons. Officer Grayson was going to have a fun time sewing those back on without Alfred’s help. “Couldn’t justify leaving without one.” 

And Dick laughed as he took off his pants, further churning the mix of confusion and arousal at the pit of Jason’s stomach. Was he really doing this? Was _this_ what he’d come for? 

He was trying to decide if it was a birthday fuck or a pity fuck or a hey-you're-not-dead fuck. Or all of the above. He was just kind of staring blankly at his erection, wondering how he'd gone from screwing with Grayson to just plain screwing him.

It probably had something to do with the fact that he was the first person to reach out to him in several impossibly long years. And, well. He'd thought about it before the 'big bang', too. It was hard to be fifteen and needy and not notice Dick. He'd been obsessive about watching his predecessor even before his hormones had decided to wake up and say hi, hello, and had he noticed Dick's ass.

He’d wanted to hate him. Had convinced himself that he did, once or twice. But it was pretty damn difficult to hate Dick. 

There'd been more than one team-up with Nightwing that'd ended with Jason limp-skipping to the relative privacy of his room. Those man-panties hadn't hid much, and his cup had been awkwardly uncomfortable.

So okay, yeah, on his end this made some level of sense. But what was Dick trying to prove? That he thought that he was still a good enough man to fuck? That he trusted him enough to offer this?

Jason was mad and confused and horny and he wasn't sure if he wanted to sleep with him because he'd had more than a few fantasies about it as a kid, or because he was feeling spiteful. Maybe Plan D was fucking Dick and then going through with his master plan anyway. Because then, when he showed up again, Dick would have to explain to Bruce why he'd thought it was safe to let him go. He'd have to look Batman in the eye and tell him that he'd let big bad Jason Todd bend him over.

The idea licked up his spine, one vertebra at a time.

Yeah. Yeah, that was Plan D. Plan D: Dick Over Dick With My Dick.

He fished a single-serve packet of lube from one of his jacket’s many pockets---the stuff was easier to carry around than a can of WD40, and just about as useful to have around. He held onto his hips with bruising pressure, turning him around. 

"No," Dick growled, grabbing a handful of Jason's hair again. "Look at me. Look at me, Jay. Dammit, _look at me."_

He twisted to face him, wrestling until he loosened his grip on his hips and let him roll over. He wrapped his lean thighs around his waist, arching up to grind against him, their cocks trapped between them. Legs locked, he rolled them both over---pushing Jason into the couch and kneeling over him. 

Dick stroked his neck and shoulders, grinning like a little kid who was way too pleased with himself. 

"You don't mind if I take a seat, do you, old chum? I want you to look me in the eyes when we make love." 

It broke something up in Jason---something that'd been jagged and ripping at his inside for a long time. He laughed. He laughed because he knew that Dick was joking, but that he meant it, too. He laughed because his options were to scream out his aggression, cry out the tension, or just laugh that Dick could say _make love_ with a straight face. 

He slouched back, Jason Todd (age fifteen and three-quarters, still alive somewhere under all that scar tissue) relaxing as his fucking boyscout of a hero smiled at him reassuringly. Dick tore the packet of lube open with his teeth, slicking up Jason's cock with a quick stroke. He spread himself with his slippery fingers. 

Jason groaned as Dick rocked into him. He was the one taking cock, but he was definitely in control---Dick rode him, hands braced against the back of the couch. He took him deep, and rolled his hips maddeningly slowly. They were doing it his way, deliberate and rhythmic instead of the aggressive throw-down that Jason would have been much, much more comfortable with. 

"God, Jay," Dick said, skin smacking skin as he sat, hard. "You're so---so _stubborn_. No such thing as too far gone. Look at me." 

Jason sank further into the cushions with a sigh that rose into a moan. He looked up at him, at the pull and flex of the long curve of his back. 

"You wouldn't have tried to find me if you didn't need someone to tell you to stop," Dick continued, his words tumbling out quick and slightly breathless as he continued to ride him. He smiled, panting. "I _know you.”_

He couldn't breathe. Something had welled up thickly in his throat, and he couldn't swallow past the lump. 

"I know why---why those kids---" 

_"Shut up,"_ Jason interrupted hoarsely, because he couldn't hear it, couldn't even think about it, couldn't dredge up those skeletons when this felt so good. 

He wrapped his hand around the back of Jason's neck and kissed him again, swallowing his thin whine of halfhearted protest. 

Jason's hands relaxed, roaming around to discover the various angles and curves of Dick. He guided his exploration with appreciative noises, gasp-laughing when Jason found a ticklish spot under his ribs. He trailed his fingertips lower, brushing the trail of coarse hair leading from his navel to his erection; wrapping his hand around the base of his cock turned Dick's laugh into an arch and a groan. 

And he liked that sound. Maybe even a little more than the sound he'd made after he'd bit him. Jason kissed his neck, experimenting with sucking and biting, lapping at the red welts he left on his salty-warm skin.

"You moan like a girl," he said, and the funny little hitch in Dick's chest made him think that maybe he _liked_ being told that. Jason didn’t say it like it was a bad thing, after all. He liked the sound of a girl’s moan. "And you're deluded. And an ass." 

"And you're a bullheaded jackass. Just _come home,_ Little Wing," he begged, and that old nickname, that stupid little endearment that Jason had almost forgotten about, pushed him over the edge. His stomach knotted, the orgasm hitting like a punch to the back of the head. He buried his face in the crook of his neck, hips jerking as he wrung him out. His arm was trapped between them, but he still had a hand wrapped around him. A few sharp tugs later, Dick came with another murmured _“Little Wing”,_ , painting Jason's chest and belly with a warm, sticky splatter. 

The air in the apartment was stale and sour with the smell of them, sweat and spunk. Even though they were both softening, Dick didn't pull away from him. Jason dragged two fingers through the messy stripes on his chest and stomach, then sucked them clean. It was curiosity, really, but it made Dick's eyebrows arch toward his hairline. 

Dick kissed him again, hard and furiously. Like he was making a point. Like maybe Jason would _get it_ if he used teeth.

"If you try to leave, I'll find you," Dick growled when he broke the kiss, his too-blue eyes livid. "'Cause I'm not buying it, Jay. I'm not. You're _alive._ Can't you just...can't you just see this as a second chance?"

It couldn’t be that easy. Dick didn’t get it, but it couldn’t be that simple. He looked at him expectantly, waiting for an answer, boyishly hopeful that he'd gotten through, and he didn't know what to say, how to lie, how to even answer that question for himself. 

“The Pit,” Jason croaked, his arm flung over his face. He couldn’t look at him. Couldn’t look at him when he said it, when he fucking broke down. His face burned and itched, the luminous green froth of the Pit glowing behind his closed eyelids. He couldn’t go a week without dreaming about it. Sometimes, the dreams were about clawing out of his grave, suffocating with dirt and worms in his lungs. Sometimes, the dreams were about drowning under the surface of the Pit, gulping the eerie water until it filled his chest and belly. In his nightmares, he could never, ever breathe. “It was the Pit.” 

“What?” 

“I really did just wake up one day.” Still screaming for Bruce. Still waiting for his rescue. “Woke up alive. Buried. Buried alive.” 

Dick wrapped his hands around his biceps, pulling his arm away from his face. Jason flinched reflexively. Instead of giving him space, Dick made him look at him. Jason curled up further, shaking. Now that he’d let the words out, the confession was hemorrhaging in a steady, awful torrent. 

Dick didn’t say anything. He let him talk. He leaned in close, warm against his neck and cheek. 

“But Joker’d bashed my head in too many times---the lights were on, but nobody was home,” Jason muttered, rapid-fire truths without a pause. “Don’t remember much of it. Wandered around for---for I don’t even know how long. Talia found me and she tried to fix me, but I was gone, man; my brain was mush. So she shoved me in the Pit.”

“The _Lazarus Pit?”_ Dick asked, fingers tightening on his arm. 

“Yeah. Didn’t put me together right, but. But I have to be here for a reason,” Jason said, head bowed. He wasn’t sure if he was explaining, or pleading, or both. “There has to be a reason.”

Dick pressed himself into him. Instead of being a suffocating pressure---like Jason had done to him; christ, he’d almost choked him out---it was the comforting weight of a very warm, very _alive_ body holding onto him. Breathing was easier, not harder. 

“We’ll figure it out, Little Wing.” 

 

* 

 

“We could put beer in ‘em, you know,” Jason said, stirring the pancake batter. 

“Why would we put beer in pancakes?” Dick asked, through a mouthful of banana. They were making breakfast, but Dick had been grazing since the moment they’d woken up. Between the workout he’d gotten and missing dinner, he was ravenous. Impatient as ever, he hadn’t been able to wait until the pancakes were ready to start eating. Jason had taken the high ground and hadn’t made any of the low-hanging jokes as Dick ate bananas and made pleased noises. Nobody appreciated food the way he did. 

“Because beer in pancakes is good,” he said, determined not to be distracted by the hums and _mmms_ Dick gave around his too-big mouthfuls. They’d already had a lazy, early-morning round two in bed---and round three in the shower---but Jason still found himself very interested in which pleased sounds he hadn’t heard yet. 

“It’s gross,” Dick said, finishing off his second banana and dropping the peel in the composter. “What makes you think I even have beer?” 

“Why _wouldn’t_ you have any beer?” 

“Because the last thing I need to do is pick up a drinking habit,” Dick explained, peeling a third banana. 

“Are you implying that you think I’ve got one?” Jason asked, an edge to his tone. He’d learned quickly that interacting with the Russian mobsters meant being able to hold your vodka, so having a tolerance was the difference between botching a job or impressing the scum. Bless his Irish genetics for giving him a leg up on that one. 

“You want to put beer in the pancakes, Jay,” Dick said, shaking his head. “What am I supposed to think?”

“You have to be willing to live dangerously, Grayson. That means trying things like beer pancakes.” 

“Do you think Bruce will eat pancakes with beer in them?” 

“Dunno,” Jason said with a shrug. “But won’t it be fun to find out?” 

Dick eyed him thoughtfully for a few seconds, rubbing the purplish blooms of bruises that Jason had sucked into the side of his neck. 

“You sure you want to do it like this?” He asked, frowning. 

The easy answer was no. No, this wasn’t anywhere near the way that he’d wanted things to play out. His plans were busted. The last year of building up his defenses almost felt like it’d been squandered. He still wasn’t sure which sins were forgivable, nor did he have any idea what he was supposed to do next. 

“You’re going to call him either way,” Jason said, scraping the side of the bowl with the spatula. “My choices are to be here when you do it, or not to be here. I’d rather be here, so I can make _sure_ you give him a glowing report.” He cleared his throat, raising his voice and adding the cheerful, nasally twang that was totally Dick. He could still pull off a great Boy Wonder impression. “‘Hey, Bruce, guess what? Jason’s alive! He was having an existential crisis, but don’t you worry---I’m pretty sure I fucked him out of it.’” 

Dick snorted hard, then broke into a coughing fit as he got banana mush up his nose. He balled up a dishrag and threw it at him. 

“I think we’re better off not mentioning that,” he said. After a moment’s thought, he added: “Not yet, at least.” 

_Not yet_ implied that it’d be a discussion they’d have eventually, which implied that whatever it was that they’d done would happen again. That warmed up the knots in Jason’s stomach, loosening them. 

“One thing at a time,” he agreed, almost hesitant to do so. He wasn’t sure where he stood with the world at large. Saying anything that implied permanence felt like jinxing himself. 

Polishing off the rest of the banana, Dick picked the cordless phone up from the charger and punched in a speed-dial number. 

“Hey! Good morning to you, too, Alfie. Any chance you and the master of the house could sneak out to Blüdhaven for a family brunch?” 

Dick leaned his hip against the counter, nodding to whatever it was that Alfred was saying. 

“Yeah, I---I hear ya; calling off the meeting will be a pain and a half, but you and Bruce really need to come out here. I’m making breakfast and everything. What? No, it’s _not_ cereal. Hardee-har-har. You’re killing me with the sharpness of your wit. No, it has nothing to do with---what? _Babs?_ Oh god, no. She’s not--- _I’m not_ \---! Come on! Nobody’s pregnant!” He shifted his weight, sighing dramatically. “Just...put Bruce on the line. Please?”

Jason’s pulse beat a rabbity tempo. He couldn’t make out the words, but he’d recognize the bass rumble of the Batman’s voice anywhere, anytime. 

“Hey, Bruce. Sorry for the early morning reveille, but I wanted to catch you before you got wrapped up in other business. I’d...I need you to come out to the ‘Haven. I’m making breakfast---and no, it won’t be cereal. Yeah, I know---I---” Dick scrubbed his fingers through his hair, starting to pace. “I know. Bruce, _listen._ I have company. You and Alfred should really be here. No. No, I can’t tell you who---because I don’t want you to break land speed records getting here, that’s why. Bru---I---” 

Wordlessly, Jason held his hand out for the phone. Dick passed it to him. 

“Hey, old man,” he said, holding the phone crooked between his ear and shoulder. He continued to stir the batter, because he had to stop his hands from shaking somehow. “You can’t be too busy for pancakes with the kids.” 

The silence on the other end of the line was tangible. It settled deeply in Jason’s lungs, suffocating. 

“Dick left me in charge of setting the table, and I need to know how many plates I should get out,” he continued, because he needed a response. Good, bad, anything. Just something. 

_“Jason?”_ Bruce asked, his voice barely above a hoarse whisper.

“Yeah,” he said, blinking rapidly. “So...are you and Alfie coming for breakfast, or what?”

There was silence on the other end. No dial tone, no breathing---just silence. Then he heard Bruce’s voice in the background, garbled and thin. “Take it. _Tell me that you hear him.”_

“Master Richard,” Alfred demanded, confused. “What is going on?” 

“Hi,” he said, feeling a weird lightness in his chest at the sound of Alfred’s voice. He only had good memories with the old butler. Tutoring and tea. Clowning around until he got him to laugh, because making Alfred laugh had always made him feel triumphant. Jason ground the heel of his free hand against his itching eyes. “It’s me, not Dick. Can I get a straight answer here? Are you guys coming for breakfast or not?” 

“Yes. Yes, we will be there shortly. Master Bruce is already in the car, and I fear he will leave without me if I don’t end our conversation now.” Alfred paused. There was a faint tremor in his voice. “It’s---it’s very, very good to hear your voice again, young sir.” 

“Right back at you, Alfred my man,” he said. “See you soon.”

He didn’t hang up until he heard the dial tone. Jason handed Dick the phone, trading him for the beer he’d magically produced. 

He downed most of it in a couple of chugs, then poured the rest into the pancake batter. 

“You get to explain why the coffee table’s flattened,” Jason said, and smirked.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I thought that I was done with this. I was mistaken. Whoops.

Nervousness had never gotten to Dick the way it did most people. For him, most forms of nerves were mixed with excitement. It was the performer’s mindset, the ability to take fear and turn it into useful energy. He was nervous as hell, trying to pick up the apartment while he and Jason waited for Bruce and Alfred to arrive. He wasn’t nervous for himself, but excited for/afraid of the reunion between his caretakers and his brother, the very much prodigal son.

If Bruce had been a normal man, he would have known what to expect. A normal father would undoubtedly have been ecstatic to find that his son, thought dead for a full three years, was alive and whole. But Bruce was never that easy. Even his happiness was cut by a vicious undercurrent of fear, so his reaction would undoubtedly be mixed. 

A mix of _what_ was the question. With the Batman, the only thing that got a straight definition was justice. His relationships with the world were complicated, a knot of near-definitions that he switched out per situation. 

Dick, for example, was his son. He'd been his ward---and sometimes still was, when Bruce needed to put distance between them, and _son_ clung too near his skin---and he'd been his Robin, and he was his friend, and he'd always be his soldier, but each of those definitions interfered with each other. The children that had taken his oath had accepted that they would have to strive to fill the Batman's ever-changing needs and definitions---and they'd learned to accept that they would forever wonder what it was they were supposed to be, because he'd never tell them. He'd only tell them when they'd failed. 

The problem with Jason was that he'd died. Death had set his definition as _a good soldier._ The memory of Jason Todd: A Good Soldier, had been something that Bruce had used to whip himself for years. He loved him, and Dick was pretty sure that he hated himself for the definition that death had written in stone for him--- _failed father._

Dead people didn't change. They were static. If they changed, it was only the shifting of the ghosts that haunted the memories of those they'd left behind. And that was a big problem, because Jason wasn't dead anymore, and he _had_ changed. He was nearly unrecognizable. 

Jason had gained a foot and a half of height, at least a hundred pounds, and so, so many scars. A casual viewer might disbelieve that he was the same boy that they had buried, but Dick had every reason to believe. If gut instinct wasn't proof enough that Jason had died and come back to them, the scar running from the tops of his shoulders to the middle of his chest and then down in a single line to his pubic bone was sobering evidence. The perfect _Y_ -shaped scar was from his autopsy. Dick had noticed it in the shower, and now he was having trouble not thinking about it. 

He shouldn't have been alive, but he was. It defied all logic. 

Unfortunately, logic was the Batman's best friend. Logic was what he lived by and he based himself on, so the things that resisted rationality troubled Bruce deeply. Dick wasn't sure how he would react to Jason, or how Jason would react to his reaction. Dwelling on all of the maybes and what if scenarios as he cleaned up the broken table, the busted handcuffs, the now-sleeveless shirt Jay had borrowed (and promptly ruined), the empty lube packet, and any other incriminating evidence gave Dick a headache.

He just wanted things to be okay. He wanted Bruce and Jason to be happy, because they both needed it. Was that really too tall of an order? 

Jason emerged from the bathroom for a second time since calling Bruce. After he'd gotten off the phone, Jason had calmly, quietly walked to the bathroom and been violently sick. His face was pale and a little sweaty. Shoving the rest of the splintered table underneath the futon couch---he'd clean it up properly later; really, he would---Dick dusted off his hands and stood. 

"You look like you need a hug," Dick said, sparing him a wan smile. Jason didn't return it.

"Try it, and I'll punch you in the dick, Dick."

"Yeah, it's hug time," he said with a sagacious nod, wrapping his arms around him. Jason struggled initially---they always did---but then sagged into him. He buried his clammy face against the curve of his neck, arms limp at his sides, and allowed Dick to hold him. "Better?"

"Fuck you," Jason mumbled. Dick rubbed his back.

"We don't have time for that now, little buddy. They should be here soon, so I'm going to put the pancakes on. Want to help?"

Jason gave him another thoroughly unenthusiastic "Fuck you," so he curled one arm around his back and marched him into the kitchen. Pushing down on his shoulder, he made him sit at the table. He mostly sprawled, long legs stretched out and back slouched. 

He had all of the grim acceptance of a man sorting himself out before execution. Dick turned the stove on, putting the pan on to heat. 

"It'll be okay," he said, as much to comfort himself as to soothe his anxious brother. "No matter what happens, things will be okay." 

"Sure," said Jason, leaning his elbow on the table. "What's he going to do? Kill me?" 

Dick shot him a look over his shoulder, pouring the first couple of pancakes on the griddle. The batter was thick and yeasty, and loathe as he was to admit it, it smelled pretty good as it sizzled. 

"Don't go there. I don't know what you've psyched yourself up for, but dial it down. If things get ugly, remember that you've got me and Alfie to mediate."

Jason scrubbed his fingers through the white streak in his hair, visibly agitated. 

"Ugly. Sure," he repeated. "That a euphemism for 'if you feel like killing him, and dear ol' Bats turns breakfast into a battle royale'?" 

Dick was suddenly, vividly reminded of what a brat Jason could be. When he felt cornered, he got defensive---snappy, rude, and downright mean. It'd pushed Dick to the limits of his patience when he'd been a weedy fifteen-year-old in pixie boots, but it exasperated him even more now that he was (for all intents and purposes) grown up. Sure, he hadn't officially left his teens yet, but he expected him to be a little more adult about the whole situation. 

"If it comes to that? _Yes_. I'm not going to let you _or_ him---" 

Dick was interrupted by a loud knock on the front door. Jason visibly tensed, the hand resting on the table curling into a white-knuckled fist. Setting the spatula down, he gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze as he walked past. He didn't bother with asking if he wanted to answer the door himself. That was too much confrontation, and Dick knew that whether or not he'd admit it, Jason needed him to act as a buffer.

Disabling the alarms and turning over the locks, Dick opened the door wide and forced himself to smile. 

That was another skill that his unique upbringing had given him. He always, always could put on a show and make it look good. Bruce hadn't had to teach him how to do it, because the spotlight already had. Juggling the playboy with the Bat, his mentor had been no slouch in the acting department.

But right then? Bruce looked like hell. His lips were pressed into a bloodlessly pale slash, the lines in his face deep enough to look like permanent gouges. His eyes were completely dry, but rimmed with red. 

"Geeze. How fast did you drive? It's been what, fifteen minutes?" Dick said. Bruce's expression made his spackled-on levity fizzle and evaporate. 

He looked so haggard. So _old_. Bruce wasn't supposed to look like that. He just wasn't.

"If the Blüdhaven police had deemed it wise to pursue us, I'm afraid that they would have found themselves unable to catch up," Alfred said, a light hand on Bruce's back. He guided him inside, but froze up himself just after closing the door behind them. 

Jason had followed Dick to the door, he realized, following Alfred's stricken gaze. He'd approached silently, hands stuffed into the pockets of his hooded sweatshirt, and kept a few feet of wary distance. 

"Jason?"

Bruce's voice was roughened by an uncharacteristic apprehension---he tried to use a low growl to mask his emotions, but Dick knew his tells. 

Jason's eyes were very bright. Dangerously so. Dick had to stifle the urge to move close enough to touch him, since that seemed to calm him down relatively well. But Bruce seeing that kind of touch, and maybe---okay, definitely---extrapolating the shift in their relationship was the last thing that either of them needed. 

"Yes," Jason said finally, staring unblinkingly at his old partner. "Surprise." 

And that's when the smoke alarm went off. The smell of scorched pancakes carried to them, and Dick scrambled to turn off the alarm and salvage breakfast. The griddle billowed acrid smoke, and he mentally smacked himself for forgetting that he'd left the stove on.

They would've been better off with cereal.

Dick leapt, bracing himself in the entryway above them with his legs and arms spread. He could have dragged a chair over to help him reach the fire alarm, but why bother?

"Sorry!" He apologized quickly, unscrewing the lid of the alarm and popping out the battery. He dropped down lightly, throat choked with the nervous laughter he was just barely keeping pent up. They weren't touching, weren't moving, and weren't talking. Dick only understood interpersonal communication through those three avenues, so this prolonged staring contest was driving him absolutely bonkers. 

Couldn't they just hug and say how much they'd missed each other? Just this once? Dick _knew_ that Bruce loved Jason, and he had a sneaky suspicion that Jason still loved him, too---despite his passionately violent rant to the contrary. If this was some kind of macho contest of willpower, Dick would start throwing punches. 

_Anything_ to break the silence.

"Pancakes," he babbled, his voice weirdly high even to his own ears. "Forgot the pancakes! It's okay. I'll just scrape the pan, toss 'em, and start over. It'll be fine, and it'll only take a few minutes, so if you guys want to talk, you can, y'know, sit at the table." He took a deep breath. "And talk." 

"No, please," Alfred said with a thin-lipped smile. "Allow me. You've done more than enough damage for one meal, Master Richard."

Dick shot him a pleading look, his eyes wide. He couldn't leave him alone with them. It'd just be cruel. But the old butler merely gave him a nod and disappeared into the kitchen, abandoning him. 

Bruce took a seat at the rickety table. Wordlessly, of course. Because Bruce was dealing with feelings, and Bruce just _didn't_ deal with feelings, and he wouldn't talk about said feelings unless he had a gun to his head.

No, probably not even then. Bullets didn't scare Bruce Wayne. 

Dick tossed the disassembled smoke alarm aside, taking the seat diagonal from Bruce's. That only left Jason with two options: sitting beside him, or sitting across from him. He chose the seat across from the Batman, probably because it meant sitting next to Dick. 

He was glad for that. It meant that Jason was easily within grabbing distance, and he could see what his hands were doing underneath the table if he leaned back a little in his chair. 

A part of him felt weirdly guilty for being so paranoid, but a larger, louder part of himself reminded him that last night, Jason had seemed _really keen_ on the bloodiest revenge possible. He wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, but it was difficult to believe that a guy as stubborn as Jay could do a complete turnaround in a few hours' time. Difficult even for him, and Dick had an abnormally large capacity for belief.

"You've grown," said Bruce. Dick couldn't decide if it was an observation or an accusation. Dead little boys didn't grow. They were dead little boys for all of eternity. 

"Puberty," Jason agreed. "It's a real kick in the pants." 

Okay. They were talking. Talking was good. 

The conversation stopped there, stilted and awkward. Dick drummed his fingers on the tabletop. He did his level best _not_ to fidget clear out of his chair.

"I, uh," he said, running his hand through his hair. He knew that Bruce would start questioning him if his anxiety got loud enough to distract him from Jason. "Found him. Or he found me. Jacked the tires off my squad car as a joke." 

The way Bruce's jaw rippled and clenched made him wish he hadn't said it. But how was he supposed to discuss Jason when talking about Jason had been taboo for so long? 

Thankfully, Alfred came in with breakfast. He arched an eyebrow at Dick. 

"If I didn't know better, I would think that someone put _beer_ in the batter."

"His idea," Dick said, pointing to Jason. 

And normally, Jason would have smirked widely and taken full responsibility, or turned it into an argument, or accused him of throwing him under the bus just because Mom and Dad were there, but he didn't say anything at all. 

Dick avoided feeling the full weight of the tension by filling himself and the air around him with a buffer: he ate and he talked, even though he was the only one doing so.

"The timing's just nuts when you think about it," he said through a mouthful of pancake. "Finding him here, in my city. Nuts. Just nuts. Don't you think so?"

Nobody answered him. He took another bite, hoping that it'd settle his stomach. It didn't. 

He felt twelve years old all over again, relearning how to hold both sides of a conversation. Going from the circus to the manor had been jarring. Bruce's silence had felt like a punishment. Circus rules dictated that you were only alone and quiet when you had done something wrong---when the group was excluding you. He should've been acclimated to Bruce's particularly rocky brand of stonewalling, but circus blood couldn't be denied.

"Your eighteenth birthday," Bruce said, after a moment. He answered Dick, but looked at Jason when he said it. He couldn't seem to tear himself away. Dick got that. It felt like Jay'd go up in a wisp of smoke if he so much as blinked for too long. "It was yesterday. I...visited your grave."

"That's sweet, but I moved out ages ago," Jason said tonelessly, mashing his pancake with the tines of his fork. Outwardly, he wasn't showing any kind of reaction. The stillness was enough to make Dick want to pull out his hair. If he didn't love his mentor and brother, he'd hate them for putting him through situations like this one. 

Not eight hours before, Jason had told him that he wanted to kill Bruce---while he'd had Dick pinned to the flattened remains of his coffee table, hands wrapped around his throat.

They'd worked that out. Dick was still sore from said working-it-out, but it'd been successful. Hadn't it? Jason wouldn't have stayed the night if he hadn't gotten through to him. Dick's thoughts cycled with breakneck speed, and even shoveling down pancakes wasn't enough to keep him from feeling sick. He was the first---and only---one to clear his plate. 

“Shall I help you with the dishes?” Alfred asked Dick, his tone translating to _let’s give them some space, shall we?_ Whatever Jason and Bruce had to say to each other, they weren’t about to say it in front of an audience. Dick’s nerves scuttled at the idea of leaving them alone, because he wasn’t sure which of them was more likely to lash out---or which one he was feeling more protective over.

But he had to trust Jason. He'd told him that he did, so now he had to prove it. Gathering and stacking the plates, he pasted on a smile.

"Sure. Shouldn't be too much work, but I'd appreciate it."

And then they both went into the kitchen. There was no door separating the kitchen from the rest of the studio apartment, so he couldn't give them absolute privacy. He did turn the faucet on full blast, though, and that kicked up enough noise to mask the conversation that was _hopefully_ happening in the other room. 

Dick didn't realize that his hands were shaking until one of the plates fell through his fingers. He probably could have caught it, but he didn't even try. He let it fall, because the sound of it shattering across the tile floor alleviated some of the pressure in his chest. It helped. Just a little bit. 

"I'm fine!" Dick called, though nobody had asked him if he was okay. "Everything's fine!" 

Alfred rubbed his hand down his back, just as he'd done since Dick had been a scrawny little boy, because he knew better. 

"It's him. It's really him. If Bruce doesn't accept that, I don't know what I'm going to do," Dick admitted in a weary mumble. "I just don't know."

"You know Master Bruce's ways. In matters such as these, he is cautious. He'll only believe once he has ruled out any other option."

"I know," he said, kneeling to gather up the largest pieces of the broken plate. "I know."

"Ah," Alfred murmured in an undertone that was almost a sigh. _"There_ we are."

Leaning, Dick peeked around the doorframe separating the kitchen from the rest of the apartment, barely balancing on his toes. They were standing, and Bruce had his arms wrapped around Jason. He hesitated to call it a hug, because it was aggressive and desperate enough to be a strangle hold. He wished that he could have seen Jason’s face, but he had it pressed against Bruce’s shoulder. He had to stoop to lean into him like that---he was as tall as Bruce now, Dick realized with a strange little jolt. Maybe even an inch or two taller. He didn’t look like a big man, though---not when he was visibly shaking. 

Dick glanced at Alfred. The butler discreetly wiped his eyes with his thumb and forefinger.

"He's a mess, Alfie," Dick admitted. "But it's him. He's still our Jay."

"A mess you are uniquely equipped to handle, I take it?"

Dick hadn't said anything about Jason staying with him, but his feelings must've been transparent. That, or Alf just knew him. 

"I wouldn't say that. I just don't know if Gotham would be good for him right now---for either of 'em, honestly."

Alfred nodded absently, still watching Bruce and Jason. It looked like Bruce was basically holding him up. His hands were fisted against Jason's back---one clutching at a handful of his red hood, the other pressed against the curve of his spine.

"I wouldn't say that, either. Forgive me for saying so, but you look positively _mauled,_ Richard." His tone was dry, but his eyes were warm with amusement. "Taking this opportunity to change into a shirt with more coverage would be prudent, I believe."

Heat flooded Dick's face. He'd been so worried about getting the broken furniture cleaned up, he'd forgotten about the most obvious evidence: the hickies that Jason had sucked into his neck. The World's Greatest Detective was mentally preoccupied, but the incriminating marks hadn't slipped past the World's Greatest Butler. He was suddenly, shamefully reminded how barely-legal Jason was, and how Alfred must have translated the situation. 

Oh, god. 

"I---we---it's not what you think."

"I think nothing about it whatsoever," Alfred said gently, patting his upper-arm. It wasn't his opinion either way, and it wasn't exactly _approval_ , but it was acknowledgment without the sting of judgment. Dick would take what he could get, because no way in hell would Bruce be so tactful. "Do hurry and change, young sir. They won't continue to embrace forever, despite their best intentions."

For possibly the millionth time in his life, Dick thanked his luckiest stars for Alfred Pennyworth.

"Have I told you lately that you're the best?"

"Not today. Feel free to elaborate on it once you've changed into something more suitable."

"Don't worry. The collar of my work shirt is---" Dick's stomach lurched. He glanced at the clock, and realized that his shift had started roughly fifteen minutes ago. Amy was going to have his head. "I have work. I should _be_ at work. I already used up my sick days when I had that Europe thing. I have to go." 

Yes, he had to go. He had to go and work his tedious daylight case. He had to go, which meant leaving Jason with Bruce until five o'clock or later. 

"Duty calls," Alfred agreed. "I will make sure that the both of them remain civil until your return."

Dick nodded numbly. Eight hours. It would only be eight hours. 

 

*

 

So, he'd fucked up. He'd fucked up big time. Jason had realized that the night before, when Dick had pinned him on the rooftop. The hours between that initial mistake and breakfast had been one long, continual reminder of how solidly he'd blown it. This Dick thing had really screwed things up, and he'd decided that the only way to find an opening out of it was to be patient. No, confronting Bruce the way he'd wanted to was no longer an option. Getting mixed up with Grayson had been the equivalent of plucking one card from the bottom of a towering house of cards---one slip-up, and all of his carefully constructed plans had collapsed. 

The meeting with Bruce hadn't been on his terms. There'd been no talk of vengeance, no knives or bullets. He'd planned to ask him---to demand to hear the explanation from _him_ \---and he'd almost done it, too. 

But when Alfred and Dick had left the room, Bruce had looked him in the eye and said, "Welcome home, son." 

And what was he supposed to do with that? What the _fuck_ was he supposed to say? He'd shut down. He'd lost it. It didn't change anything---he was still wrong, he was still antiquated, and Jason was still _angry_ \---but those three words had slipped beneath his ribs and cracked them open. 

Fucking Bruce. Too little, too late. 

Alfred and Bruce hadn't stayed long after Dick rushed off to play pretend with the BPD. Bruce had taken samples from him---blood, hair, tissue---and Jason had gone along with it, even though it'd made the banked coals of his temper flare up hot and bright. He'd said that he would be back to check in with him in a few days, which Jason translated as _I'll be back for a thorough interrogation after I've found holes in your story large enough to punch you through._

Bruce would uncover some of the nastiness. He was positive of that. How _much_ dirt he stirred up hinged on whether or not Dickiebird shared notes with him. 

And he wasn't sure if he would or not. He wasn't sure if he'd keep his big mouth shut to try to 'protect' him, or if he'd blab to Dad to protect _him._ Jason didn't like that he didn't know. It itched at him. 

Jason prowled around the apartment. _If_ he stayed, he'd have a solid block of eight hours to himself every day, and he was torn on how he felt about that. If he decided to do something---and oh, some corner of his brain just screamed to get away from this situation, disappear, and clear his head---those eight hours would be his best time to get the things accomplished that Dick wouldn’t want to see. Or the things that he didn’t want Dick to see, at least. He tried not to think about the semantics of it all.

It seemed like there wasn't a single safe corner of the apartment. It blared Dick Grayson from all angles, mess and clothes and artifacts of his overbearing love. He had a poster of the Flying Graysons on one wall---and Jason didn't like that he could tell that Dick had his father's jawline and his mother's smile---and pictures of people everywhere. 

Why would anyone have so many pictures? Did it make him feel less lonely, stuck in this shithole of a city? To Jason, it made his apartment feel haunted---haunted by a host of dead friends with frozen smiles. He looked at the photographs with morbid curiosity, cataloging how many of the faces that he recognized, and how many of them were gone. He frowned at a weirdly familiar snapshot of a younger Dick Grayson with his arm slung around the shoulders of a kid that was grinning just a little too widely. 

It took him a full half a minute to realize that the kid was _him_. Dick had kept a snapshot of the two of them together, a good memory that he'd wanted immortalized. Jason scraped his memories with frantic urgency, because he didn't remember. 

He didn't remember this. He remembered owning that down parka vest, and he remembered thinking that Dick's haircut was stupid, but he didn't remember going to whatever snowy mountain that loomed in the background. 

Fuck. 

Sometimes, Jason found holes in his head. People, places, and things that he _should_ remember, but didn't. He could feel around the edges, but he could never tell what had been there. The Joker had taken a crowbar and had beaten this day in the snow with his brother out of him. It was gone. Dick had photographic proof, but he had _nothing._

Jason briefly considered asking him about it. He could explain that brain damage was no joke, and Dick would launch into a colorful retelling of the memory he'd lost. He'd tell him where they'd been, what they'd done, and who had taken the picture. Had it been Bruce? Had the three of them gone up to the mountains together? Was that why it'd been important enough to memorialize on film? 

Instead, Jason took the polaroid off the wall. He went to the bathroom, opened up the window, and fished his lighter out of the pocket of his jeans. He skated the flame beneath the picture until it caught fire, curling and smoking and eating them up. He held onto the corner with pinched fingers until bubbles and holes erased them, then dropped the smoldering remains into the toilet. 

If he didn't get to have it, nobody did.

After he'd had two cigarettes, blowing the smoke out the window so that Dick wouldn't complain about the smell, he felt a little bit better. Jason continued his exploration, but _carefully._ He didn't want to find any more surprises like that one. 

Curiosity drew him to the closet. He knew that Dick had changed his costume, but he hadn't seen it up close. The suits were hung up in his closet, right along with the rest of his clothes. It was a Dick kind of thing to do, he thought---to him, there was no demarcation between his day clothes and his night clothes. When he put on the blue stripes, he didn’t become somebody else. He was still Dick Grayson, through and through. Still a birdbrain. 

Jason ran his fingertips over the material, tracing the blue _v_ from chest to shoulder. It was surprisingly thin---it had give. It’d cling to his body, stretchy enough for all the goddamn flips Dick’s heart desired. Not very durable, though. It’d tear, and there was no way it’d deflect even small arms. He pulled it off the hanger, balling it up between his hands and smelling the collar. He closed his eyes, inhaling. Musky sweat, locker room-worthy B.O., and some kind of sandalwood cologne that he probably hadn’t purchased himself---it was a spicy scent, something a woman would have bought because she'd wanted to smell it on him. The uniform smelled like running and fighting and _Dick_ , a well-worn skin that he shed every day at sun-up.

Basically, the suit stank. Seemed like Dickiebird was flitting from one thing to another, not taking the time to land, so he couldn’t keep up with the small stuff, like cooking, cleaning, sleeping, and his more complicated laundry. Alfred had spoiled him rotten, and it wasn’t like a vigilante could take a costume to the dry cleaners. All of Dick's stuff was a little bit ripe and a lot a bit wrinkled, worn too much and then shucked off hastily. He hadn’t been kidding when he’d said that ironing was hard for him. 

Well, fuck. It was something to do. Better than driving himself crazy trying to figure out what judgment Bruce would mete out, or how to get himself out of this corner he'd painted himself into. Jason stripped his shirts and suits from the hangers, tossing them into piles. There was a pile for garishly colored laundry---and christ, he had too much of that; Dick’s fashion sense had never escaped 1987---a pile for whites---how could one guy own so many socks?---a pile for darks, and a pile for vigilante crap.

Dick had a surprising amount of clothes. Jason figured that he probably bought new stuff instead of cleaning what he already had, since he had a lot more money than time. What an idiot. Jason lived light, owning exactly one wash's worth of laundry. He could fit it all in a backpack, and only switched items out when they got too threadbare, too bloodstained, or when he couldn't be seen wearing the same thing twice. He got most of his clothing secondhand, since crisp, new clothes caught the interest of practiced eyes. 

Jason liked thrift shops. He liked wearing clothes that someone else had owned, loved passionately for a little while, then discarded. He kept them until they wore out. He knew it was stupid, but it soothed some of the smallest aches inside of him. 

Gathering up the enormous pile of socks, he decided to watch some tv while the washer ran its cycle. He didn't like the sound of his own thoughts, all of a sudden, and there was no cure for thinking quite as potent as daytime television programming. 

 

*

 

It was, without a doubt, the longest beat shift that Dick had _ever_ had. He found himself rubbing his neck throughout the day, massaging some of the darker bruises with his thumb. Jason hadn't left him with just a couple of hickies. No, a few of them were unmistakeable bite marks, and they reminded him of their existence with little twinges of pain whenever he turned his head or stretched. It wasn't a bad thing, though. Embarrassingly, he liked the small physical reminders of Jay. His shirt usually felt stifling, but today, he’d been thankful for the high collar. It’d covered most of the bruising, thankfully. Good thing, since he looked like he’d gotten strangled. And okay, maybe he had gotten a little bit strangled. But only a little bit.

Dick wasn't entirely sure what that said about him. The whole… _thing_ with Jason had come out of nowhere. Hell, Jason himself had come out of nowhere. He hadn't really thought things through in the moment, because keeping him with him and keeping him close had edged out rational thoughts. Dick was more reactionary than anything else, so when he'd seen his dead brother bird in a tailspin, he'd done what he could to save him. He hadn't lingered over the consequences of his actions, or the emotions that powered them.

But with eight hours of paperwork and mindless patrol between him and seeing Jason again, he'd had way too much time to sift through the ramifications of what he'd done---what he'd offered, and what he'd implicitly promised to continue to offer. Malloy ribbed him for his rare pensiveness, but Dick didn't even know how to explain away his quiet introspection. He settled on a thin smile, telling him that tragically unavoidable periods of brooding ran in his family. His partner had laughed and left him alone with his thoughts for the rest of the day.

He didn't like to be alone with his thoughts. Didn't like to be alone with himself, period. But he understood the need, and knew that if he didn't sort himself out before he got home, he wouldn't be able to handle the Jason situation.

He wasn't sure if he'd done the right thing---not for himself, and certainly not for Jason. He'd seen what a self-destructive, devastated mess he was, and had recognized that if he'd given him what he'd wanted---a fight, confirmation that he was capable of hurting the people who he'd loved in his past life---he'd be risking not only himself, but Bruce as well. And it'd hurt, seeing him that messed up. Dick hadn't weighed the pros and cons---he'd just wanted to make him _stop_. 

On that front, he'd been successful. He'd broken through, and Jason had broken down. As far as he could tell, he'd set aside that nasty plan to unseat Bruce by any means necessary. But for how long? And what had changed his mind---had he not been fully set on homicide, or had he only dropped it because Dick had offered him…

Dick rubbed the prickling heat of the bruises wrapped around his throat. 

He'd offered himself. And judging by the cautious interest that Jason had displayed before Bruce's arrival, he wanted more. Maybe even expected it. 

And Dick wasn't as opposed to the idea as he should have been. 

Eight hours of thinking, and he still didn't feel like he had a handle on the situation. Dick resigned himself to just rolling with it, figuring out what it all meant as he went, and hoped that it wouldn't blow up in his face. He had a spotty track record in that regard. 

Bruce had left an incredibly short voicemail on his cell. He'd gone back to Gotham, but he'd be in touch. Dick was relieved, if only because he felt like he needed to talk with Jay---and it had to be the kind of talk that Bruce would not be included in.

As usual, he started loosening his uniform as soon as he walked into the main foyer of the apartment complex. By the time he got up to his floor, he'd undone half the buttons of his shirt, and felt like he could breathe again. 

Jason was there when he opened the door. For a second, he'd worried that he might not be. 

"Hey." 

Dick pulled at the knot in his tie, toeing off his uncomfortable work shoes. Jason sort of hovered in the entryway for a moment, his mouth tight with lines of strain. 

Jason surprised him by leaning down and kissing him. It wasn’t a very good kiss, teeth pressed hard, but he’d initiated it. And that? That was something. When he straightened, he very clearly looked like he wasn’t sure if he should have done that. 

“You, uh,” Jason said, taking a half step back and popping his knuckles distractedly. “Bust some baddies and make the tax payers proud, Officer?” 

“You bet.” He took off his tie, unbuttoning his uniform shirt the rest of the way. “Want to order in? I don’t feel like cooking, and I’ve got to get something in me before I put on the ol’ fingerstripes.” 

“Chinese,” Jason answered promptly. He popped a couple more knuckles, not looking at him. “We patrolling tonight?”

Great. He’d hoped to have this conversation over food, not fresh off eight agonizing hours of Officer Graysoning. The hopefulness in his voice was painful. He could basically hear the _just like old times_ hanging, unvoiced, at the end of his question.

 _“I’m_ patrolling tonight,” Dick clarified, searching for a reaction from Jason. 

He gave him zilch. Nada. He could pull a hell of a poker face when he needed to.

“So. I’m on house arrest?” Jason said, flat and low. “Too dangerous to turn in to the cops, too dangerous to release into the wild, and good gravy, has Bruce ever got a thing for _not_ getting rid of his problems.” 

Dick would’ve liked it a lot more if he’d drawn up to his full height and boomed it at him. He knew how to deal with aggression when it was loose and loud. Jason was outwardly calm, but his eyes had darkened to a frightening gunmetal gray. That kind of aggression---that kind of _rage_ \---was toxic. It was anger that had been held so long, it’d been compressed and sharpened. It was calculating and so, so lethal.

Frankly, it scared the crap out of Dick. 

“No,” he blurted out immediately, then sucked on his teeth and regretfully amended, “Well, okay, yeah. Kind of. But it’s only temporary. Bruce asked me to keep you under observation for a while, to make sure that the Pit didn’t---” There was no good way to say it. He fumbled with the words. “---that it didn’t...you know...” 

“Drive me crazy,” Jason finished, so evenly that it gave Dick an instant stomachache.

“I don’t think that it did,” he said, with every ounce of surety he could muster up. 

Jason's jaw set stubbornly, but the rest of him relaxed.

“Fine. I get it. The Pit is bad, so nobody but a dumbass like you is willing to welcome me back with open arms.” 

“It’s just for a couple of weeks. Just until Bruce calms down. He doesn’t handle surprises well, and this was a huge one.” 

“Yeah. I know. Like I said, _I get it._ But I still want some fucking Chinese food,” Jason said, almost sulkily. 

Dick beamed at him, palpably relieved. This was good. This was very good. This was proof that he had read the situation correctly---that Jason was a damaged, raging mess of a man, but he didn’t actively want to kill anyone. Maybe he’d convinced himself that he did, but just the fact that he was willing to stay under observation and be patient showed a flicker of the old Jason Todd. That Jason had been damaged and raging, too, but he’d had more love in him than hate. He wasn’t so far gone that he couldn’t equalize again. Dick truly, deeply believed that. 

And maybe that made _him_ crazy. But it made him Dick Grayson, too.

“The menus are in the top drawer to the left of the stove. Lemme change out of my work clothes while you call it in, okay?” 

“Sure,” he said shortly, turning back into the kitchen. He looked about as relieved to move past that tense conversation as he was, but neither would touch on it. “What'll you have?” 

“If you’re ordering from Wok This Way, I’ll eat just about anything on the menu,” Dick called over his shoulder, unbuttoning his shirt the rest of the way and tossing it on the bed. “Believe me, I’ve tried it all. So get whatever. Just get a lot of whatever. I’m starving.” 

“Living dangerously, I see.” 

“I trust you,” he said, and pulled open the closet doors. Instead of being assaulted by the questionable aroma of his own dirty duds, he smelled...nothing? Baffled, Dick leaned in, carefully inspecting his clothes. His Nightwing costumes smelled like mild soap, not all of the sweat that a straight week of heavy use had worked into the fabric. His beat uniforms were clean, too---and they’d been _ironed._ “Jay!” 

“What?” Jason asked, reappearing with a thick, colorful stack of delivery pamphlets. “Man, we need to talk about how many menus you’ve got in here. If Alfie finds out you’re ordering in this often, he’ll slap the shit out of you. And I want to be there to watch.” 

“Did you do this?” Dick accused, holding up his slacks. The front crease was neatly pressed and everything. 

“It stank,” Jason said, jerking his wide shoulders toward his ears in the approximation of a shrug. “So I cleaned it.” 

“You did my laundry,” he said, grinning. Jason was stiff and defensive, busying himself with thumbing through the menus. 

“Look, daytime television doesn’t do it for me. I watched America’s Most Wanted for a while, but I think the hotline people were starting to get antsy about all of the tips I was calling in. Seriously, I solved three of the cases while I was waiting for the laundry to finish. So if you’re on the FBI’s watch list now for knowing a wee bit too much about the busting of crime,” Jason shrugged again, the corner of his mouth crooking up into a smirk. “My bad. I was bored.”

“The lovely lady watching _them_ can clear any warning flags that might pop up,” Dick said, unbuckling his belt and shucking off his pants. He switched out his work clothes for a pair of sweats and a t-shirt---something comfortable to wear while they ate. He’d put on his _other_ work clothes after he’d wolfed down enough Chinese food to keep him full for at least an hour. “Thanks. I mean it. I really appreciate it. You didn't have to do that. You don't owe me anything, okay?” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Jason said, flipping open the menu for Wok This Way. “Whatever. Don’t expect it to become a thing, ‘cause it won’t. I’m not going to be your Alfred while I wait for Bruce to decide whether or not I’m a zombie nutcase.”

Dick had to bite the inside of his cheek, hard. He absolutely could not start laughing, but Jason looked like such a sullen teenager, it struck him as hysterical. 

He smoothed down his shirt---much-worn and much-loved, it had a few holes in it, but he couldn’t find it in him to toss it out---and joined Jason back in the kitchen. He arched up on his toes, wrapping his palm around the back of Jason’s neck and pulling him down for a thorough kiss. It was better than the one he’d tried to give him in the entryway---slow and gentle and practiced, not quick and awkward with a click of teeth. Jason lifted him---and he did it so easily, so effortlessly, that it made his belly bubble with unexpected warmth---and sat him down on the kitchen counter. He settled himself between Dick’s thighs, tossing the rainbow of takeout menus aside. They fluttered to the floor, momentarily forgotten.

And okay, maybe Dick would be going out for patrol a little later than usual. But he deserved an hour or two for himself, didn’t he? Everyone had been on his case about not allowing himself any downtime between the day gig and the night gig, so all he was doing was taking their advice to heart.

This was good for him. Of that much, Dick was positive. 

 

*

 

Even in the middle of the night, the 'Haven skyline had smears of hazy artificial light. It was never truly dark, but then again, most cities weren't. Gotham sat to the north, the glow visible even from such a distance. It looked kind of beautiful when it was nothing but diffused gold and twinkling points of neon---if he hadn't known better, he would have thought it was the land of promise. To the most busted and desperate 'Havenite, it had to look like a better option than their current situation. The gutter was always cleaner on the other side.

Maybe that's what Jason had been doing in Blüdhaven. Maybe he'd wanted to see Gotham with enough of a buffer to pretend that it was beautiful. Nightwing perched on the edge of a rooftop overlooking the Spine, keeping his ears sharp for the inevitable sounds of laws being broken down below. The Spine was a fat artery stretching diagonally through the city, the main street and uncontested center of sin. If he wanted action, he was guaranteed it on the Spine. Between the pushing, the prostitution, and the creative debauchery, he was never left bored for long. 

"You're late."

The shadows rearranged behind Nightwing, pulling into the rippling folds of the Batman's heavy cape. He'd been so preoccupied with thinking about the problems below---and the problems locked into apartment 3A of 1013 Parkthorne Avenue---he hadn't had his ears tuned for the slither of the shadows that the Bat liked blending himself into. He was so used to being the top dog in town. Too used to it. And Batman had just reminded him of the fact. 

"Didn't realize I had a punch-in time for my solo patrol in my own city, but yeah, okay," Nightwing said, the flippancy inching toward the surface. It was difficult for him not to feel little prickles of resentment when Batman doled out those gruff put-downs. "I had to tuck in my little brother. Didn't know you'd stick around for the night shift, Bats." 

The Batman straightened, his expression impassive. Nightwing would have sworn that the events of the day had just shut his emotional output down entirely. That's what Batman did when he was overloaded with thoughts and feelings he couldn't easily compartmentalize. He knew that---knew him---because he'd been his partner for longer than either of the little birds that'd taken his place after he'd left the nest.

"We should talk." 

He would've made a quip about never expecting those three words out of him, but he couldn't quite push himself to hit that note of levity. His ears were ringing faintly. He'd figured that they'd discuss the Jason situation eventually, but he'd hoped that it would be as Bruce and Dick, _not_ Nightwing and Batman. 

But that'd been wishful thinking. 

"I've always got my listening ears on," Nightwing said, because when Batman said _we should talk_ , he usually meant _I'm going to talk._

Batman's head tilted slightly toward the neon-lined gutter below them. He locked on a fixed point, unmoving. 

Oh, yeah. He'd hit his limit. He'd seen him stand like that, vacantly staring ahead for hours on end, whenever he had to really _think_ about a situation. He shut down the world around him and retreated into the relative safety of the mind of the Greatest Detective. As a kid, he'd wondered what it was like in there---if the topography of his inner landscape was a neatly organized cave full of bats, too. 

"Oracle gave me her personal assessment," Batman said, his voice lowered to an authoritative throb. Nightwing had to keep himself from instinctively straightening, conditioned response to being briefed by the Bat.

Poor Babs. As soon as he'd left the apartment, he'd called her---and had been rewarded with a scalding crabbiness from his ex-batgirlfriend. Nightwing had asked her to do him a favor and make sure that nothing _left_ the perimeter of his apartment until he got back from patrol. He'd been braced to explain the situation, but she'd already heard that Jason was back and crashing on his couch for the foreseeable future. 

That hadn't surprised him too much. Oracle had a knack of getting information, so he'd stopped asking _how_ she knew what she did. Apparently, Bruce had been talking with her on and off all day, asking for her to dig into a half-dozen things related to Jason. He'd been short and less than sweet about his requests, in typical Bruce fashion. His demand for a detailed report of the first mission that she'd joined Jason on had pushed her over the edge. The team-up had been small stuff, five years past. She'd been Batgirl then, and there weren't many things that dissolved her patience faster than being forced to comb through the memories of the life the Joker had shattered with a single bullet. 

"And?" Nightwing prompted, when Batman didn't go on. 

"She believes that he is who he claims to be." 

It was crap like that that made Nightwing want to punch his mentor, sometimes. Okay, more than sometimes. He wanted to punch him a lot. 

"I told you that. You saw him yourself. You _know_ that it's _him,"_ he said, an edge to his tone.

"With the resources available to our enemies, we can't be sure of anything," Batman replied, and it had the snap of a rebuke. "But tissue, blood, and hair samples all back up his story. He surrendered samples, as well as his prints." 

"Of course he did," Nightwing said, heat rushing up to his face so quickly, it made him dizzy. He was suddenly and blindingly angry with himself for choosing to go to his day job. He should have been there---should have been a buffer between Jay and the mad, all-consuming paranoia of the Bat. Bruce's disbelief had to have rankled. It had to have hurt. God, and then he'd come home and told him that he was on house arrest. No wonder he'd been pissed. "He wants you to believe him. He'd let you take chunks out of him all day if he thought that it would _convince_ you!" 

Batman said nothing, but that silence was its own pointed criticism. He hated that he could shut him up by saying nothing at all. 

"He's alive. According to him, there is no explanation for his spontaneous reanimation."

In Bat-speak, that was a question. That was, _and what do_ you know about it? 

"I believe that he believes it, too. I don't know whether or not it's the truth, but it's what he believes." 

Nightwing paused. He'd lied to Jason, earlier. He'd told him that this talk had already happened, and that Bruce had decided that he should stay with him. 

That'd just been hopeful projection. He didn't know what Batman would decide, but he was prepared to appeal the hell out of his case if he didn't agree with his preemptive ruling. Jason would be okay with him. He _knew_ that he would. 

"This is what we do know," Nightwing said, finally. "A few months after he died, he 'woke up', then dug out of his grave." 

"Yes," the Batman interrupted, "The alarms on the casket were primed to trigger if someone tried to get into it. Not out. The groundskeepers feared losing their jobs, so they covered up the disturbance." 

"He had brain damage, so he's fuzzy on everything that happened immediately after digging his way out. He said he was on the streets for a while, and---" 

"Already swept through some of my contacts. A boy matching his physical description was a member of a small group of homeless children. He stuck out in their memories, since he was nearly catatonic, but able to defend himself with training no normal boy should have. He did not speak, did not engage with others, and only met his base needs." Batman paused. His voice dipped lower, softer. "He shared whatever food he stole. He was well-liked by the other children." 

Dick's heart pressed against his ribs with bruising pressure. 

"Sounds like him, yeah." 

"Go on." 

Nightwing cleared his throat. "And those acrobatics and fighting skills didn't go unnoticed. Information trickled down, and…and Talia found him and took him in." 

He felt Batman coil a little bit tighter. _"Talia?"_

"Yeah, uh," he flapped his blue and black fingers, wanting to get past this part as quickly as possible. Bruce hadn't known. The gravelly note of anger mixed up with disbelief in the Bat's growl painted that story in broad strokes. "She recognized him, and picked him up off the street. She gave him medical attention, fed and clothed him, and tried to screw his head back on straight. I figure that she knew what he was to you, so she was trying to clean him up to give him back. Losing him hit you hard. Everyone who knew you could see it."

Again, Batman said nothing. Nightwing didn't really care if he was being generous, embroidering Talia's intentions. Better that Bruce think she had his best interests in mind than the worst. If he thought that Talia had attempted to turn Jason against him, there wasn't a chance in hell that he'd trust him ever again. 

"And in the end, medical science drew up short. So she briefly--- _briefly_ \---immersed him in the Pit." 

He would've sworn that the temperature around him dropped a couple of degrees. 

"---but it was just for a few seconds, I think. I mean, you've seen him---he's still scarred up. I'm no expert in magic pitology, but I think that maybe it goes for the most severe internal damage first, which was his head. It sorted that out." Mostly. He was pretty sure. He hoped. "But you know Ra's. He doesn't like it when anyone else swims around in his personal hot tub of youth, so Talia had to smuggle him away. He bounced between handlers for a year, and now---now he's here. With us. And that's all we know." 

Lying by omission was still lying. He was only too familiar with the concept. But for Jason's sake---and Bruce's, too---he had to do it. 

If Bruce thought that Jason wanted to seek revenge, he'd never let him back into the fold. And if Jason thought Bruce would never trust him again, he'd have every reason to let himself off the chain. 

It was too dark to be a white lie, but all he wanted was to do was protect them. They could mend this, but not if either of them regressed into an unbreakably defensive stance. 

Batman nodded, small and slow. 

"Your assessment?" 

Nightwing pulled in a shaky breath. 

"He's been through the wringer. I wouldn't trust him wholesale---" Another lie. He _did_ trust him, but Batman wouldn't want to hear that. "---but only because the Pit's been known to have adverse psychological side-effects. I suggest keeping him under observation for a while, in a non-threatening environment. If he feels like he's been caged, he'll react to it. So I---I think that he'd be best off with me. Oracle can keep a watchful eye on my place, and he doesn't know the 'Haven the way he knows Gotham. Even if he did decide to leave, he wouldn't have as many resources immediately available to him." 

Batman straightened, arms crossed over his broad chest. That signaled the end of a conversation. 

"I'll look into the connection with Talia," he said. "I'll keep you updated with my findings." 

Dick's pulse pounded in his ears. _Yes._

"So, he's staying with me?" 

"For now." 

That was good enough for Dick. He could work with that. Jason just needed some time and TLC. He could give him that. 

"However. Even with Oracle monitoring the perimeter, I don't want him to be alone and unsupervised day and night." Batman glanced over at him, unreadable behind his white-out lenses. "Your patrol is nonnegotiable." 

Ah. Of course. There always had to be a catch, and this one was a doozy. Batman was making him choose between Jason and the police force, and while he understood his reasoning, frustration still percolated in his chest. 

"If I pull out before they finish the last of the inquests, some of the dirty cops might fly under the radar," Nightwing said, very carefully. "Rendering the work I've done null and void. So…give me a few more weeks. I'll beef up my security, and when I know we've flushed the BPD, I'll turn in my badge. You have my word." 

People didn't make demands on the Batman very often. Usually, he was the one who called the shots and decided how things were going to go. He epitomized the idea of 'my way or the highway'. You did things his way, or not at all. For a beat, he thought that he might change his mind for---essentially---telling him _no, I refuse_.

But Batman nodded again, just a dip of his cowl's pointed ears. 

"Two weeks." 

Nightwing couldn't hold in his sigh of relief. That wasn't much time, but it was time all the same. 

"Okay," he said, as Batman pushed back his cape and readied his grapple line. He was done talking, which meant that they were through. Never one to waste words, his Batman. Before he could swing away, though, Nightwing added, "Tell me. Honestly. You know in your gut that Jason's really back, don't you?"

He stilled, bowing his head. 

"Yes. That's what I'm afraid of." 

Then the Batman fired the line, and was gone. 

And Dick had no idea what to do with that.


	4. Chapter 4

Dick hadn't expected the nightmares. He should have, but he hadn't. If he’d thought about it for two seconds, he would have realized that Jason’s trauma would translate to night terrors---what he’d told him was horrific, and he had a feeling he hadn’t told him even half of what he’d gone through since the Joker had fractured him on a soul-deep level. He knew that there were things in Jason that had been profoundly---if not irreparably---damaged. For all its drawbacks, the Pit had healed him enough to make him sharp again, but he was far from being fixed. Dick understood that. The sound of his mother and father hitting dead center of the big top's spotlight had broken something in him, too.

Jason was passable during the daylight hours, grinning and cussing, but Dick knew all about resilience. Being resilient wasn't the same as being healed. He knew that. More than that, he knew that the world had been trying to eat Jason Todd alive since long before his ugly intermission.

So, he should have anticipated him having night terrors. He didn't, though---not until he was jerked from deep sleep by a blow to his side so hard, he woke up choking. He caught the next hit in the jaw, rattling his teeth and splitting his lip. The first breath he managed to gulp down tasted like blood.

He blocked the next punch, but it was just reactionary; Bruce had drilled him in hand-to-hand until defense was absolutely second nature. He didn't think, he just protected himself. That gave him the mental distance to wake up a little, focus past the awful ringing in his ears, and figure out who the hell had gotten into his room. Whoever they were, they were intent on turning him into a fine feathered smear, and he had some objections to being smacked around like that. 

It took a few seconds before his thoughts caught up with the rest of him. But they did. They did, and he realized that it was Jason. 

He was fighting him. No---not him. He was still asleep, face screwed up in pain as he lashed out drunkenly. Jason was fighting something in his head. Something stronger than he was. Something that was winning. 

He was visibly terrified. 

The worst part was, Jason didn't make any noise as he wildly fought. He didn't scream or cry---he just sucked in the dry little sobs of hyperventilation. Dick blanketed him with his body, shoulders hunched and chin tucked in order to protect his head and neck. He straddled him on his knees, trying to pin his arms to his sides. With the way that Jason was twisting and flailing, Dick didn't stand a chance. Jason was bigger, he was stronger, and he was hitting like he was fighting for his life.

And in the dark mess in his head, he probably was. Dick squeezed his sides with his legs, fisting one hand in Jason's hair and hanging on for _his_ life. He curled into him, mouth close to his ear, and started talking in the tone he usually reserved for jumpers and dying friends. Shaking him and yelling would just make him thrash all the more violently. He had to ease him awake, calm him down, because he didn't want him to wake up feeling like he was still being attacked. 

"Jason. It's okay. It's okay. It's me. I'm here. C'mon, Little Wing. You're safe."

He went limp. Dick stroked his neck with the back of his knuckles, still murmuring soothing little nonsense noises. He crawled off him again, figuring that he wouldn't want his weight on him. Jason didn't move at all. He cycled rickety breaths, opening his eyes and looking at Dick, but he didn't move. 

"Nightmare?" Jason didn't say anything, either. Didn't move and didn't speak, but he managed to radiate a shame so thick, it was nearly tangible. Dick sighed. "Yeah, I get those, too." 

Finally, Jason touched his bare chest, then examined his fingertips. Dick realized belatedly that his busted lip had dripped during the struggle, leaving a dapple of red spots on the sheets, pillows, and second Robin. 

"You're bleeding," Jason said, almost confusedly. He shifted, sitting up and cupping Dick's face. His jaw was already searing hot and throbbing, a promise to swell up and bruise. If Gannon asked, he'd just say he'd been mugged. Or something. Yeah, he'd think of something believable. "Damn, but I got you good."

Dick wiped his mouth on his forearm, smearing a red stripe where his blue one usually went.

"S'fine. I'm fine. Are you?"

Wordlessly, Jason slid out of bed and padded out of the room. Dick muttered a curse, putting pressure on his already-fat lower lip with his thumb. Yeah, he should have anticipated this. He'd have nightmares, and in typical I-was-trained-by-Bruce-Wayne fashion, he wouldn't want to talk about it. Dick didn't talk about his nightmares, either, but his usually ended in a seasick rush of vertigo and him shouting _no_ until his voice cracked. In his nightmares, his parents fell over and over again, and the Joker juggled a crowbar and a pistol and asked which one he should use first. Dick sweated and he swore, but he never lashed out. 

But Jason had the unhappy marriage of both bad dreams and the guilt of accidentally beating Dick's face black and blue. And no matter what he said---no matter how many times he told him that it was okay, that it was an accident, and that he didn't blame him---Jason would stew in that guilt. 

Surprisingly, he came back a few minutes later. Jason had four ibuprofen, an icepack wrapped in a dishrag, and two glasses. One of them was empty, and the other was half-full of water.

"Rinse and spit," Jason said shortly, handing him both glasses. "Unless you like how your blood tastes." 

Dick worked a gulp of water around his mouth, swishing and then spitting into the other glass. He swallowed the painkillers, chasing them with the rest of the water. Jason passed him the icepack, then leaned over and picked his boxers up from the bedroom floor. 

He gingerly pressed the icepack to the side of his face, trying not to visibly wince at the way it stung. 

"What're you doing?" 

Jason pulled his boxers up with a businesslike snap of elastic. The runny early-morning light lit up the curve of his back as he gave him a tiny jerk of a shrug. 

"I'll take the other bed. Can't have you going to work looking like you went twelve rounds with a gorilla, Officer." 

"What? No. Jay, no." Cradling the icepack to his face with one hand, Dick awkwardly freed himself from the tangle of sheets and reached for him. He wrapped his hand loosely around his wrist. "That bed's just for show. It's not very comfortable."

The 'Dick Grayson' half of the apartment had a small, spartan bed on display. It was a studio, though, and Dick felt more comfortable when he had snug walls around him. The bed that he actually used was in a small hidey-hole of a bedroom partitioned into 3B. The walls were covered with the pictures he couldn't display publicly. The one piece of furniture that he had dropped a good deal of money into was his bed. It was a great bed. It was a big bed. And honestly, he'd liked having someone around to share it with him. 

"Don't worry. I'll probably end up tenderizing it a little." 

Dick almost wished that he could hear himself. Whether or not he realized it, Jason's low mutter was a stunning impression of Bruce. Jason tried to pull away, but he tightened his grip on his wrist and shook his head.

"Get back in bed. I'm only going to ask nicely once."

Jason sighed. "There's masochism, and then there's just stupidity. I don't care if _you're_ willing to take a couple hits if it means you get to be the little spoon, but I don't---I _can't_ …" 

He didn't want to hurt him. Jason couldn't dredge up the right words, but Dick got it. He smiled crookedly, even though it made half of his face throb. 

"You got a couple lucky hits, but I'll be ready for it if you start thrashing around again. Being alone isn't going to help you work through the nightmares. Believe me, I've always slept better when I'm with another warm body." Dick let go of him, lifting up the corner of the sheets. "Get in here, Little Wing. Let me try being the big spoon. I'll bet it'll help." 

Jason's expression was muddied by the low light, but Dick didn't miss the way his Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. He sighed again, then obediently crawled back under the covers. Dick put the ice pack on the pillow beneath his head, freeing up his arms to drag Jason's back flush to his chest. He wrapped both an arm and a leg over him, burying his nose against the nape of his neck. Jason curled up, balling up into a more manageable little spoon.

"You're like a goddamn koala," Jason accused. 

"Good," he said firmly, squeezing him. "Because we're going to spend some _koala_ ty time together, Jaybird." 

"I'm starting to think you're not _koala_ fied to be my babysitter, Dickiebird." 

"Nobody else puns me to sleep," Dick grinned into the hollow between his neck and shoulder. "This is why I want to keep you around."

"Yeah? Well, I'm going to give you ten seconds to shut up and go back to sleep. Then I'm going to start _pun_ ting. I think you already know how that'll end." 

"I can take any _pun_ ishment you can dish out," he said, and meant it. 

But Jason didn't reply to that. Or if he did, Dick didn't hear it. He was suddenly, overwhelmingly sleepy, his body loosening in a way that felt good, but unnatural. Jason, he realized, had spiked his water with a muscle relaxer---just to make _sure_ that his new bruises didn't keep him from getting a few more hours of sleep before work. With all of the blood in his mouth, he hadn't tasted it. 

When his alarm woke him up, Dick was alone in bed. He found Jason eating a bowl of cereal on the couch, his hands and hair stinking of cigarette smoke. Jason avoided looking at him, and when he glanced at himself in the bathroom mirror, he saw why. His face was a mottled mess. 

They were all _very_ good at blaming themselves for the things they couldn't control. 

 

* 

 

It was difficult for Dick to go to work knowing that he was counting down to turning in his badge. He couldn't announce it, either, since it'd look suspicious. When he turned in his badge, it'd have to be suddenly. He'd cook up some kind of story---something to make his bowing out of the force a sad but unavoidable thing. 

It ate him up. Dick couldn't say it, but he loved the job. He had to limit himself, playing the role of the overeager rookie, but it was nowhere near as lonely or frustrating as his night job. He almost needed his beat, because at night Blüdhaven had absolutely no love for the man that had decided to protect it. He got along well with Gannon, and Amy was the kind of cop that he wished every cop could be. If the force was populated solely with Gannons and Amys, Dick would have felt a lot less guilty about leaving them. Hell, if the police had that kind of dedication and raw goodness, maybe costumed vigilantes wouldn't be necessary.

But Batman had given him a choice, and as far as Dick saw it, it wasn't really a choice at all. He got to keep Officer Grayson, or he got to keep Jason Todd. He couldn't keep all of his plates spinning while juggling a potential bomb, and even he could admit that. It didn't make it any easier, but it made it feel less unfair. 

Jason was worth it. Dick gravitated toward need, and right now, Jason was the neediest thing imaginable. Every day with him was surprising---some of the surprises good, some gut-wrenching. He comforted himself with the knowledge that even without the police force eating up a large chunk of his day, he wouldn't have to worry about being bored. 

On day five of the fourteen he had left with the BPD, Dick came home to find a former villain and a former drug mule waiting for him---his neighbor and superintendent, to be precise. 

Aaron Helzinger---the one-time rage machine known as Amygdala---was seven feet and several hundred pounds of muscle, run by the thoroughly medicated mind of a sweet simpleton. When he was properly dosed, Aaron was a giant teddy---emphasis on the _giant._ He towered beside Dave Toussant, the man that Dick himself had appointed as the superintendent after Clancy had left for college. 

Taking his hat off, Dick smiled at them. "Evening, gentlemen. How's it going?"

"Dick, did the ghost hurt you?" Aaron asked, sounding alarmed. Even with painstakingly applied makeup, Dick hadn't been able to completely cover up the shiner that Jason had given him. He had strangulation bruises and hickies around his neck, a fat lower lip, and a black and blue jaw. He hated to think what he'd look like if Jason _didn't_ like him. His little brother wasn't an easy guy to love. 

"Excuse me?" 

"There is a ghost in your room," Aaron confided in a hushed boom. "Mr. Toussant says that it is not a ghost, but I have heard the ghost. And it is a ghost. Definitely, definitely."

"And I told him that it's no ghost, since ghosts ain't rude enough to be that noisy," Dave said with a wry grin. "We agreed to disagree. Wanna be the tiebreaker, man?"

"Oh, geeze, I'm so sorry," Dick said, his smile turning genuinely apologetic. And he usually did such a good job with keeping quiet and unassuming, too. Leave it to Jason to rock the boat until it capsized. "An old friend of mine dropped by earlier this week. He's had a rough couple of years, so I told him he could stay with me until he gets himself sorted out. Is that okay, Dave? I'll talk to him about the noise. You won't have to worry about it."

"You know I can't say no to that face," Dave laughed. "And hey, I've been there, y'know? Had my own tough times. Tell 'im to keep his karaoke to daylight hours, and I think it'll be cool."

"Thanks," Dick said, relieved.

Technically, he was his boss. He owned the building, but Dave didn't know that. He'd been honest with him---mostly, at least. Jason was an old friend, and saying that the last couple of years had been hard on him was the understatement that made the last earthquake to rock Gotham look like a tremble. In his experience, the best lies were ones that were rooted in the truth. Start with what was real, and start embroidering until it had enough padding to deflect suspicion. For as much as he disliked lying, Dick had to do a lot of it.

He wasn't going to tell Aaron that he was right, though. He didn't want to think about the ghost in his apartment.

Dick could hear the music halfway down the hall. He was surprised that Jason was advertising that he was there. He highly doubted that it was accidental, since no one with their level of training 'forgot' how loud they were being. 

Queen. He was listening to Queen, he realized. 

_"…I'm just a poor boy, I need no sympathy. Because I'm easy come, easy go…"_

And he was singing. That was what Dave had meant by asking him to keep the karaoke down. 

He opened the door quietly, the turning of the tumblers masked by the booming stereo. The apartment looked empty, but he could hear Jason's unmistakable bass crooning alongside Freddie Mercury. It was one of the first things that he'd noticed about him, actually---his voice had deepened dramatically since the last he'd seen him, only hints of Jason Todd, Age Fifteen and Three-Quarters, bleeding in around the edges. 

_"Mama, I just killed a man…put a gun against his head, pulled the trigger, now he's dead. Mama…life had just begun, but now I've gone and thrown it all away…"_

Dick shed his tie, shoes, and neatly-ironed shirt as he followed the sound of his voice into the adjoining room. Dick 'rented' both apartment 3A and 3B, though he paid for 3B by a mail order and the fake name of Dr. Fledermaus---German for _Bat_ , naturally. No one bothered the mysterious and fictitious Dr. Fledermaus, so he felt safe keeping his various vigilante-specific accessories in there, including his training equipment. The sound-proofing in 3B made the music seem like it was coming out of 3A. Thank god for that. The last thing he needed was Dave to think that Dr. Fledermaus was back from overseas, hard of hearing, and a fan of glam rock. 

_"Mamaaaaa, oooooh---didn't mean to make you cry. If I'm not back again this time tomorrow, carry on, carry on…as if nothing really matters."_

Jason was working out. Had been for a while, from the looks of it. He'd dressed down to a pair of baggy shorts and a t-shirt. The shirt clung to his back and chest, stained with sweat---August in the 'Haven was smothering heat and stench, and the AC in the building was perpetually on the fritz. Hands wrapped, Jason was beating the stuffing out of the hanging bag---and singing while he was doing it, lyrics punctuated with the muffled thumps of his fists slamming into the bag. 

Geeze, he'd gotten big. The realization kept surprising Dick. He wondered when he'd get over it---when he'd think of this man when he imagined Jason Todd, not the goblin of a little brother that'd only come up to the middle of Dick's chest. Probably around the same time that the trauma-induced stripe in his hair stopped bothering him. 

_"Too late, my time has come---sends shivers down my spine---"_ The chain securing the punching bag rattled rhythmically with each hit. Jason had his back to him, the muscles shifting and tensing beneath his sweat-soaked shirt. _"---body's aching all the time. Goodbye, everybody, I've got to go…gotta leave you all behind and face the truth."_

Dick _loved_ Queen. He had to have listened to Bohemian Rhapsody ten thousand times---he knew all of the lyrics by heart. But with Jason singing it, each stanza hit him hard, like he was hearing it for the first time. The words ached. 

Dammit, Jay. 

_"Mamaaaaaa, ooh, I don't want to die. I sometimes wish I'd never been born at all!"_ Jason belted out. The guitar riffs squealed, and when the solo ended, Dick started singing with him. 

_"I see a little silhouetto of a man,"_ Dick interrupted, and Jason whipped around. _"Scaramouche! Scaramouche! Will you do the Fandango?"_

And he really liked the way he lit up. Normally, he got off his shift and dragged himself home to a perpetually empty apartment. Since Jason had reappeared in his life, Dick came home to sound, movement, and contact. Ever the contact junkie, he was starting to look forward to leaving the station. He always got a hell of a greeting when he walked in the door. 

Freddie Mercury and friends sang by themselves as Dick flexed both hands in a 'come hither' gesture, and Jason threw a punch at him. He blocked easily, but felt the power behind it. Even when he was holding himself back, sparring for fun, he hit like a mac truck. Dick knew that all too well, and had still-fading bruises to prove it.

_"I'm just a poor boy, nobody loves me!"_ Jason croon-laughed, ducking when Dick followed up his block with a sweeping kick. He was distracted, laughing, and so it was easy to twist them down to the floor. Jason had the upper hand when it came to size and strength, but Dick was far more flexible. They were relatively well-matched when wrestling, especially if it wasn't a serious competition. No matter how strong he was, he couldn't win if he couldn't keep him pinned, and Dick was a borderline contortionist. 

_"He's just a poor boy from a poor family, spare him his life from this monstrosity,"_ Dick answered, pinning both his wrists. Jason was making it easy for him, which meant he had either worn himself out boxing, or he just wanted to cut the chase short. 

_"Easy come, easy go, will you let me go?"_

_"Nooooo! We will not let you go!"_ Dick grinned, and sealed the sentiment with a kiss. Jason radiated heat, damp hair slicked back from his forehead. He squeezed his biceps hard, feeling the warm muscle tense beneath his skin, and enjoyed how incredibly alive he was. Smelly, hot, sticky, breathing heavily, and very, very alive. 

It was hard to kiss him when he was fighting a smile, though. Bad enough that his mouth was tender. Jason slung a leg around him and rolled them over, shifting so that he had _him_ pinned. 

_"So you think you can stop me and spit in my eye? So you think you can love me and leave me to die?"_ He sang loudly, and he didn't want to think of how much he meant the words. Jason pushed against him, hips rolling, and Dick couldn't help the long moan that dragged out of him. _"Oh, baby. Can't do this to me, baby…just gotta get out, just gotta get right outta here!"_

"If this vigilante thing ever falls through for us, I think we could take our show on the road," Dick laughed, chest heaving. He was already starting to sweat, the August mugginess soaking through him. "But in the meantime, the super asked me to tell you to turn the music down." 

"I wanted to gauge your neighbors' tolerance level," Jason said, confirming that yes, there _had_ been a reason behind his singalong. "For future reference." 

He'd been thoroughly, innocently testing the soundproofing in his apartment---and how much noise the other people on his floor were willing to put up with. Jason had a knack of making even his most deliberate and calculating actions seem like a regular teenager's standard of not giving a crap. 

He played possum almost too well. On _every_ level. 

Instead of thinking about that, Dick arched up and kissed him again. Jason was getting better at kissing, but he still needed more practice. As with everything else he threw himself into, Jason picked up the new skill quickly. It was funny, feeling him mimic the little nips and twists and licks that he used on him. Jason memorized his movements, even when he was blissed-out and stupid on pleasure. He'd never stopped imitating Dick. Not really. But even as Robin, he'd only learned from him, then made the moves his own. 

They'd worn the same scaly shorts and pixie boots, but Jason had never been a carbon copy of him. The last notes of Bohemian Rhapsody dropped off, leaving the training cubby oddly quiet. 

"You need a shower," Dick informed him, patting the thick muscle of his upper-arm. "Maybe two. How long have you been working out?" 

"Coupla hours. It was something to do." He sat back, tugging at the athletic tape around his hands. He unwound it, flexing his fingers. "And I'd hate to lose my girlish figure." 

Dick snorted. It'd take more than a few days of inactivity for Jason to lose his considerable muscle mass, but he understood wanting to get some of his energy out. 

"I thought you were going to catalogue the Double Dare files for me." 

"I did. It took an hour and a half. You know how you've got me under your watchful eye until you decide if I'm sane or not? I'll do you a favor and answer the question for you." Jason rolled off him, flopping on his back with an exaggerated sigh. He stayed close enough to keep touching him, just his calf pressed against his. It was a tossup as to which one of them was more starved for physical attention. _"Yes._ This? This staying cooped up day and night? _This_ is driving me crazy."

"It's only been five days," Dick said, pushing himself up on his elbows. 

"I'm already starting to forget what the outside world looks like," Jason sighed, flinging his long limbs out and sagging with over the top dejection. He looked like a massively unhappy starfish. 

"Drama queen." 

"Prison warden."

Guilt tugged at Dick. If the situation had been reversed, he would have already been clawing the paint off the walls. All things considered, Jason was taking his detention gracefully enough. His complaints were more sullen than serious, and according to Babs, he hadn't even attempted to challenge the security. 

Jason was trying to be good and patient. If Bruce hadn't insisted on at least a month of observation, he would have already written him a clean bill of mental health--- _that_ was how hard Jason was trying. If Dick had been eighteen, needy, and trying hard to prove that he was sane and balanced, it would have backfired horribly. He would have been so resentful, so angry, that he'd literally crawled out of six suffocating feet of earth only to be held at arm's length. Bruce hadn't visited or called since the first morning. Dick wasn't sure if he would---not until he came to grips with the fact that Jason could no longer be the carefully-polished memory of a dead boy. 

He liked to think that he was helping keep Jason grounded and calm---that maybe, part of the reason he was okay was that Dick made him feel wanted. He was definitely reacting well, and reacting…unmistakably. 

Dick glanced at the obvious bulge in Jason's shorts out of the corner of his eye. Ah, to be eighteen again. He never initiated things with him, but he almost always seemed ready to go. Since Jason was so aggressive in every other aspect, it was a small red flag for him, a question. 

But not one that Dick was prepared to delve into. Someday, maybe, but not until he felt certain that the wrong word or action wouldn't drive him away. 

"Come here," he said, reaching out and tracing the arch of his hipbone through the thin, damp material of his shirt. Jason looked at him and smiled. 

And that smile? That wide, genuine smile? That smile made everything--- _anything_ \---worth it. Whatever it was that he was giving him, Jason needed it. That connection was addicting. Dick tried not to think about it. He tried hard not to define what was between them now, since they definitely weren't siblings or 'just' friends, and lover had always struck him as too transitory a term. He tried not to think about his bruises, or how he basically had to sleep with one eye open, or how much he'd miss working with the police. 

Because if he didn't think about it, he could let himself enjoy whatever it was that they had. And Jason wasn't the only one who'd been feeling disconnected and isolated. 

So Dick didn't think about it. Didn't talk about it. He just _did._

 

*

 

A week after the breakfast with Bruce and Alfred, Jason got another visitor. This one was unexpected, and extremely unwanted. 

There were rules against him leaving the apartment when Dick was at work, but he hadn't told him what to do if someone knocked on the door. So far, nobody had. The people in the apartment building knew that Officer Grayson worked the day shift, so they didn't bother stopping by. When he heard the light knocking at the door, Jason desperately hoped that it was a Girl Scout. He would have committed minor acts of terrorism for Girl Scout cookies. 

But he didn't find a girl bearing sweets when he answered the door. 

"Hi," said the kid who had haunted him from the stack of candids Talia had given him. "I'm Tim Drake, and I---" 

"Fuck you," Jason interrupted flatly, and slammed the door with enough force to rattle some of the picture frames on the wall. 

He’d never, ever forget the first time he saw Tim Drake. Talia had passed him the glossy 5R photos, and he’d forgotten how to breathe for a good ten seconds. He hadn’t let it show---hadn’t wanted Talia to know that the smirking, scrawny little boy in the mask might as well have gutted him; hadn't wanted to pop the seal on the coagulated mess of pain and betrayal in his chest---until that night, alone in his hotel room. 

He'd pinned the photos on the wall, shoving thumb tacks into the wallpaper, and then sat on the edge of the bed and stared at them. He'd leaned over like he had a weight on him, his hands clasped loosely between his knees. Rubbed his fingers over his knuckles, feeling the splits and scars. Some of them were from his time with _him_ , but most of them were the knotted tissue left from digging and digging and digging his way out again.

Standing, Jason had lurched to the wall. Traced the laces in Robin’s red tunic. Rested his palm over a close-up of the emblazoned gold _R_. Ran his fingertips over the curves of the green domino mask, and he could have sworn he _smelled_ the spilt-bourbon of spirit gum. 

That’s when he'd started to cry. Gasping, painful, choked. 

It should've been him. It should never have been taken away from him. Was he really the only one who thought that?

So, no. He didn't want to actually see Timothy Jackson Drake in the flesh. Didn't want to be anywhere near him, because there was that small, enticing chance that he might lose his temper and do something he'd regret. A silky inner voice assured him that his actions would be justified. He had every reason to be angry. He could even blame it on a spate of crazy brought on by the Pit. The reasoning was seductive. 

He tried not to listen to it. But boy, it was tempting. 

"Uh, hey?" The replacement piped uncertainly from the other side of the door. "I'm sorry that I didn't call ahead, but Dick said that I could come by whenever. I really should have called! I'm sorry! Should I come back…some other time, maybe?" 

"No," Jason said flatly. 

"Look. I'm---I'm sorry---" 

"Stop saying you're fucking sorry!" 

"But I _am_ \---" the kid tried to say, but he cut him off by pounding the heel of his fist against the door. 

"No, you're not! Shut up!" 

Not his most mature reaction, but Jason didn't feel like being an adult right then. He sank to the floor, back against the door---just in case that little shit tried to break his way in---and lit a cigarette. He pulled in a needy lungful, rubbing his forehead with his other hand. 

After a long stretch of silence---long enough that Jason almost thought that he'd gotten the hint and left---Tim tried again. 

"I'm sorry, but---" 

"I thought I told you to _shut the fu---"_

"No!" Tim yelled, his voice hardening. _"You_ shut up! You're Jason Todd, and I've wanted to meet you since I was _nine years old!_ I'm not going to leave until I get to talk to you!" 

Okay, so he had a little bit of spine in him. Jason had expected that much, because you needed that bare minimum just to survive as Bruce's partner. It didn't impress him. It didn't change his mind. It confused him, honestly, because _why_ would he have wanted to meet him since he was a kid? 

He wasn't exactly…anyone. Hadn't been back then, and wasn't anymore. There'd been a bright, beautiful blip where he'd been a Boy Wonder, but that was gone now. 

"Then you'd better get comfortable, sport," Jason said, taking another drag off his cigarette. His chest rose, his lungs clamping down. Holding in a breath full of smoke was heady, purposeful strangulation. He exhaled slowly, the tendrils of smoke curling from his nose. There was something therapeutic to the ritual of inhale, hold, and release. "'Cause I'm not opening this door." 

"Fine!" 

Screw this kid. Fuck him with a chair, sideways. This was supposed to be his quiet time. This was supposed to be a safe zone. Bruce wasn't supposed to be able to touch him here, and there wasn't a doubt in Jason's mind that Bruce had sent his new baby bird to check up on him.

If he knew what was good for him, the replacement would leave. Jason hadn't been joking. There was no way in hell that he'd open the door for him for a second time. 

 

*

 

"Six hours, Jason," Dick growled, chopping the air with both hands. He was genuinely angry, his too-blue eyes narrowed and mouth pulled into a hard line. Sure, he was a boy scout, but he was no pushover. He had a temper on him. He didn't like to advertise it, but it was there. Sometimes, Jason mashed all of his buttons just to see how quickly he could make him go from smiling to snarling. Lighting him up felt good. "Six. Hours. You made him stand in the hall for _six hours!"_

Jason shrugged. "I didn't 'make' him do anything. I told him to get lost, so it's not my fault he chose to loiter, Officer. And for the record? It was only five and a half hours."

He'd counted down the hours until Dick got off work, morbidly curious. He'd wanted to see if the stubborn little shit would actually stand outside for that long, and wanted to see what he was to Dick. Big brother had been very, very careful not to bring up Robin number three in conversation, but Jason hadn't been able to convince himself that it was because he didn't care about the new kid. His gut instinct had been right---Dick treated Tim like family, reaching out for him. 

Dick touched people. It was how he checked in---and he was always checking in, always reminding them that he was there. He compensated for Bruce's aversion to contact. He rubbed Tim's back apologetically, the anger in his face smoothing out and then creasing into fine worry lines.

It was all that Jason could do to keep himself from smacking Dick's hand away---from getting between Robin One and Robin Three, because dammit, that was where he _belonged._

He was being ridiculous. He knew that. Hell, even Egon had zeroed in on that aspect of Jason's personality: _you get_ angry _too easily. Then you become an idiot_ , he'd told him in that thick German accent of his, grinning with gums stained red from his cherry energy drink. When Jason was calm, he was dangerous. When he was angry, he was _still_ dangerous, but it was the self-destructive rage of a brain-damaged moron. 

But the anger felt good. Jason liked being angry. He felt righteous, protected by the blast radius he created around himself. With anger came a whole chemical cocktail of adrenaline and hormones---energizing, numbing, and galvanizing all at once. 

So as he watched Dick wrap a hand around the back of Tim's neck, leaning into him protectively, he clung to his anger. It was the easiest option, because it drowned out everything else. 

Normally, he used the anger. Here, that wasn't an option. And wouldn't you know it, that just made him even madder. 

"Tim, I'm so sorry." 

"No, it's okay," the kid said with a feeble smile. "I understand. It can't have been...comfortable, seeing me in his suit." 

"It's not okay," Dick said, shaking his head. "That was just mean. He shouldn't have taken it out on you. It's not your fault that the mantle passed on. I mean, I got over it passing to him."

Tim looked Jason straight in the eye, his gaze weirdly calculating. He wasn't much to look at---short and lean, easily half Jason's weight---but there was an unsettling rapidity in what was going on in his blue eyes. It was dissecting, a glance that held laser-point accuracy. 

"But it wasn't taken from you," Tim said, unblinking. His brows rucked together, and he suddenly seemed _sad._ Not sympathetic. Just sad. Like whatever it was he saw when he looked at Jason hurt him. "Not like that."

He hadn't expected the replacement to get it.

He hadn't _wanted_ the replacement to get it.

Jason had no idea what to do with him now. He wanted to keep hating him---and he did, really. He still wanted to plant himself between the skinny kid and Dick, because he saw a reflection of Bruce's brain in his eyes---and if he saw it, so did Dick. But that spiel had made his hate a lot less virulent. He wasn't sure if he'd be able to gather up that head of steam again, even if he tried. 

Because the replacement _got it._

"If you would've said that from the get-go, I might've let you in," Jason said, which was the absolute closest he would get to an apology. 

Tim smiled at him so hugely, it was like a punch to the teeth---sudden, sharp, and jarring. He'd barely given him so much as a nod, and he was tripping over himself with excitement over it.

Where had Bruce found this kid? He was needier than the first two Robins put together. If he glowed at him, he must downright worship Bruce. 

And just like that, his misplaced anger came full circle. Back to Bruce. Always back to Bruce. 

"You said that you wanted to get some air, Jay," Dick said, his fingers flexing as he squeezed Tim's shoulder. "Tim _volunteered_ to drive out here and take you out for a while. And you made him stand in the hall for six hours. Good going."

"I was thinking maybe a museum," Tim said, his pale face pinkening as his eyes flicked away. "Bruce told me you liked museums. But I'm pretty sure the museum's closed, now…"

Jason sighed explosively, throwing up his hands.

"Okay! You guys win! _I'm an asshole!"_

"Well, you said it, not us," Dick grinned. 

"Sure, gang up on the dead guy," Jason said waspishly. "I didn't come back from the great beyond to be the unwanted middle child, you know." 

Dick grabbed his keys from the counter, twirling them over his index finger.

"C'mon, boys. We're going to Brent's."

Brent's had the best hotdogs on the east coast, bar none. If Dick thought that his foul mood could be fixed by feeding him a couple of chilidogs, he was _absolutely right._ He hadn't had Brent's in three years, and the thought made his mouth water.

"God help you if you even think about calling shotgun," Jason growled in an undertone. Tim wilted even smaller, if that was even possible. But Jason's victory was short-lived. Dick smacked the back of his head, giving him a very pointed look.

"Be good," Dick warned, in his _I Mean It Jason_ voice. "Or you're riding in the trunk." 

 

*

 

When Dick had told Tim that he could come and visit Jason, he hadn't expected him to do it first thing the very next day. He should've anticipated that, since Tim had stalked every detail of Jason's tenure as Robin, but he'd forgotten to warn Jason. Really, he blamed himself for poor Tim's bad day. It'd been clear to Dick that Jason felt that Tim had replaced him---that he'd edged him out of the nest, and that there was no room left for him as a result. And he wasn't totally wrong. Batman only needed one Robin, and Jason had physically and mentally outgrown the role. It didn't surprise him that he'd reacted poorly, but he hoped that he'd be able to rectify things. Jason didn't hate Tim. He didn't know Tim. 

And Dick was bound and determined to fix that. He loved Jason, and he loved Tim, and he knew them well enough to believe that they would get along if Jason would just smooth his hackles down. 

The drive to Gotham was tense at best. Tim sat in the back seat and tried very, very hard to engage Jason in conversation, and Jason tried very, very hard to be as difficult as possible. 

Jason was really good at being difficult. Nobody knew that better than Dick. 

They got their meal, and Dick decided to drag them to the one place where they all felt at home: the top of one of the highest buildings in the area. Up that high, the summer smog was thinner and cooler. It was quiet. The rest of the world was spread out far below, nothing but distant noise and pinpricks of twinkling light. 

They sat on the edge of the rooftop, legs dangling over the side. Dick planted himself between his brothers, because even with a belly full of chilidogs to take the edge off his crabbiness, Jason wouldn't want to be _that_ close to Tim. He had a feeling that Tim wasn't too fond of the idea of being within shoving distance of Jay, too. 

They ate in relative peace. Until Tim asked a question that Dick himself had wanted to ask Jason, but hadn't been able to work up to. 

"So…what are you going to do?" Tim caught his lower lip between his teeth, frowning absently. "I mean, after your probationary period is over. Have you thought about it?" 

A strange little ripple of panic washed over Jason's features. It was brief, but Dick still caught it. 

"Don't know," Jason said, and took a huge bite of hotdog so that he didn't have to answer any further questions. 

Dick nudged his calf with the toe of his boot. 

"You'll do whatever you want to do," he said, giving him a reassuring smile. "If you want to jump back into the vigilante stuff, we'll figure something out for you. If you want to go back to Gotham, I'm sure we can set you up with an apartment. If you want to stay here in Blüdhaven with me, we---" 

"I'm staying here," Jason interrupted, his mouth still full. He took another bite, looking like he'd rather choke to death on a chilidog than explain himself. 

Tim was quiet during this exchange, glancing between Jason and Dick. He nervously tore his bun into chunks. 

"Okay," Dick said, nodding. "Then we'll start setting up something more permanent for you. But if you're staying with me, you're going to have to get along with Tim. He's my brother. I expect you to respect that---and to respect him." 

"You don't---" Tim said, visibly flushed, but Dick waved him off. 

"No. I mean it. I'm not going to have you guys butting heads. If it comes to that, I'll lock you both in a room until you get along." 

"Or until one of us emerges, bloody and victorious," Jason said, finally swallowing. "Not all of us are fans of hugging things out, Dickiebird." 

"Don't even joke, Jaybird," Dick said, mimicking his use of avian pet name. Tim looked even _more_ uncomfortable. "Uh. Sorry. There's not really a Tim-bird, is there?" 

"Nope," Jason said, noisily sucking the last of the chili from his fingers. "But we could call him Tim the Tit. Tits are birds." 

_"Jason---"_

Tim cut him off. He squared his shoulders, turning to look at him very seriously. God, he looked so small next to Jay. Worryingly so. 

"Look," Tim said. "If you want me to give Robin back to you, I will. I never intended for this to be permanent. I only did it because you weren't there, and I couldn't convince Dick to go back to being Robin. And Batman _needs_ a Robin." He took a deep breath, setting his mostly-uneaten hotdog aside. "And you _were_ Robin. And you were amazing."

That hit Jason hard. Dick could tell, because he went forcibly blank. Jason was a great big mess of reactions, so when he wasn't broadcasting something---and loudly---it meant that he was feeling something that he couldn't share. His throat worked. 

"Nah. I wouldn't fit in the scaly shorts anymore anyway," Jason said, a little huskily. "Not that you kept that tradition going."

Tim took a couple deep breaths---the kind that he took when he was calming himself down from being excited or overwhelmed.

"I, uh," he said, nodding jerkily. "I don't know how you guys did it. Didn't you get cold?"

"'Course we got cold. I can't count how many times I thought I'd freeze my pair of Robin eggs off. And shaving my legs all the time? What a pain. But back in my day, that's what real sidekicks did," Jason said, and grinned one of his slow, easy grins. There was a hint of malice, but Dick could live with it just being a hint. 

It took incredible willpower for Dick _not_ to drag both of them into a hug. He hastily shoved his hotdog into his mouth, because he couldn’t grin if he was busy chewing. 

Jason's jealousy was oddly adorable. It'd continue to be adorable, so long as he didn't do anything to Tim. If he just grumped and growled and got handsy when he thought he was being ignored, the 'sibling' tension would be okay.

He hoped so, at least.

 

*

 

Dick's trust made him careless, and Jason wasn't very good about keeping his nose out of things. He liked to think of himself as a man of action, so when he saw or heard things that needed sorted out, he elected himself to get shit done. They were all like that, really---all of the vigilantes did what they did because they'd seen a need, and were egotistical enough or crazy enough to think that they were capable of fixing all the things that were wrong with the world. 

And in a place like Blüdhaven, the list of things that were passably decent was infinitely shorter than the list of things that were wrong. Blüdhaven made Gotham look like a well-behaved child. It was rife with pollution, crime, and a poverty line heavy and low enough to crush most peoples' dreams. The 'Haven's corruption had thorny feelers that reached all the way from the gutter to the mayor's office. The BPD had been absolutely rotten---from what Dick had told him, most of the costumed villains were better examples of upstanding citizens than some of the boys in blue. This anguished Dick, who liked to believe that everyone with a badge stuck in them had it for the right reasons. It didn't surprise Jason, though. He'd never liked police officers. He'd spent too much time on the street to respect most of them. 

But Dick had managed to worm his way into the police department, busting the roof off after only a few months. Sixty-two percent of the officers had been canned, and the remainder was running itself ragged trying to put up a strong front.

The scum in Blüdhaven's gutters could smell weakness, though. And they'd been pecking away at them, knowing that they didn't have the manpower to do anything but deflect. 

Dick had asked Jason to put his files in order. This was something of a Herculean task, because Dick's organization system lacked both a system and organization. He preferred physical files to digital ones, but there wasn't any real rhyme or reason to how he had it all compiled. He kept careful notes of his nightly activities, but it looked like he jotted things down on whatever was closest before he crashed into bed. Most of it was in notebooks, but not all of it. There were sticky notes, looseleaf paper, and an absurd mix of other things. The most recent entry on the Trigger Twins, for example, was written on the back of a takeout menu. Dick didn't have time, and Bruce wasn't breathing down his neck. He had to cut corners somewhere, and this was one of the things that he was skimping on. 

Dick probably gave him the files because he _knew_ what a godawful mess they were---it'd take Jason weeks to sort it all out and update it to a digital format. He'd have to meticulously organize it, scan everything, and type it up. This was a solid distraction. 

But it gave Jason complete access to everything Dick knew about everyone who was making his life hell. All of the dirty laundry from Blüdhaven's biggest scumbags, right at his fingertips. 

Blüdhaven reminded Jason of himself. Nobody really wanted to be there, and most people thought that it was beyond redemption. People drove a little faster through it, doors locked. They pointedly looked away. 

It didn't take a genius to see where the black beating heart of the city's corruption lay: all crooked paths in Blüdhaven led back to Roland Desmond. 

Lounging on the couch with his feet kicked up on the recently purchased---and poorly constructed---coffee table, Jason made his way through the thick folder dedicated to Blockbuster. The guy had an impressive reach, and an even more impressive set of mutton chops. That was a face that only a mother could love, and even that was a serious stretch. There was a hastily-scribbled note paperclipped to the file.

_Enlarged heart. Superman says he has ~1 year in him._

Ah. Big bad bossman's ticker was failing him. There was a bit of poetic karma in there, Jason thought as he tapped a cigarette from his slightly bent pack. Despite Dick's protests that it was a gross habit, he'd started smoking _more_ since the beginning of his house arrest, not less. It was a mix of boredom and nerves, and Dick's debilitating guilt kept him from telling him to stop. 

He indulged in small vices to keep him off the big ones. After the night he'd worked Dick over, Jason had pretty much stopped sleeping. He didn't want to risk harming him, because that was _exactly_ the kind of shit that would make Bruce realize that he was dangerous. Jason couldn't have that, so he avoided sleeping. He stayed awake all night next to Dick, and caught a few hours here and there when he was at work. It was difficult for him to force himself to sleep during the day, especially when he wasn't working himself to physical exhaustion. 

But Dick wasn't really sleeping, either. He was braced for the night terrors that Jason wouldn't allow himself to have, so he wasn't getting restful sleep. Unlike Jason, he had a patrol shift in police blues and a patrol shift in blue stripes, so he couldn't afford not to sleep. 

It worried Jason. Dick wasn't good at covering his own ass. Worry was something he wasn't accustomed to dealing with, so Jason soothed himself with little nicotine kisses. 

He had too much time to think. It was becoming a problem, he decided as he lit the cigarette and took a long drag. 

"I distinctly remember telling you that if I ever caught you smoking again, I'd make you eat the pack one butt at a time," a slightly tinny female voice said, startling him into a coughing fit. "You're lucky that I can't follow through on that threat from a distance, Boy Wonder."

Once he managed to breathe again, Jason glanced over at Dick's computer array. Not surprisingly, the monitors were on, and displaying a familiar face. 

"Well, if it isn't the all-seeing, all-knowing Oracle," he said with a practiced smile. "Don't you think I'm big and strapping enough to have graduated past being a Boy Wonder? I feel like I'm more of a _Boy_ I _Wonder_ how he got so roguishly handsome, now." 

"Hello to you too, Jason. Still keeping up on your calculus?" 

"You kidding?" Jason scoffed, closing the folder he'd been thumbing through and tossing it aside. "I dropped that like it was hot as soon as I lost my vivacious redheaded tutor."

The corner of Barbara's mouth turned up in a faint smirk. 

"You haven't changed." 

"Aww, now that's not fair. I'm all grown up now, Babsie." 

"Clearly," Barbara said, and her tone turned absolutely glacial. He wasn't sure what he'd said wrong, but it'd been _something._ "I called to give you a head's up. You'll be having a visitor sometime this week. I'm not sure when they'll make the time to get to Blüdhaven, but I don't want you to get jumpy if and when they drop in unannounced." 

"'They'?" He echoed, wriggling his fingers. "Mysterious. Do I get to know who's checking up on me, or is it supposed to be a surprise? 'Cause if it's my replacement, he already tried to bond."

"So I heard. You made him sit in the hall for six hours." 

"It was only five and a half," Jason said, rolling his eyes. "Dick needs to get his facts straight before he starts tattling on me." 

"Just drop the 'stab first, ask questions later' mentality for the week. Nothing can get in or out of that apartment without my permission, so you don't need to be on alert. You might as well enjoy the downtime and catch up on your calculus." Her voice warmed, finally. "I can assign some homework, if you'd like." 

"Nah," Jason said, glancing over at the stack of files again. "I'm keeping _plenty_ busy."


	5. Chapter 5

His second visitor came in the middle of the night, when Jason was very purposefully keeping himself busy with all of Dick's files. If he focused on collating like a motherfucker, he'd be able to block out how his inactivity was slowly building into a physical ache. He wasn't good at _not_ doing things. He'd spent the last year of his life being a very, very busy bee, so derailing into doing nothing at all grated on him. In the week and a half he'd been with Dick, he'd watched him get progressively wearier. He'd been worn thin when he'd found him, and now he was getting threadbare. 

That ate him up him, because it was his fault. And what would he do if the goofy, well-intentioned idiot got himself killed? Jason had suggested going out on patrol with him---just to watch his back; Dick had to know that he was just as good as he was, if not better---but Dick had sighed and shook his head. If Bruce's stubbornness landed Nightwing in hot water, the revenge game would be back on. 

He was just looking for a reason. Jason knew that. But that would be such a _good_ reason. 

So what if he was feeling kind of protective of Dick? His 'big brother' was one of the only people to genuinely give a crap about him in a very long time. By Jason's estimation, that earned him a little loyalty. 

He didn't like to pry apart the idea that maybe he hadn't ever stopped thinking of them---Bruce, Alfred, Barbara, and Dick---as his. His…whatever. Not quite family, not quite friends, but the people who had at one time thought of him as one of them. Jason was jealously possessive of the few things that he had, so anyone who tried to mess with them got messed with right back. 

He'd been chewing on that concept like a dog with a well-gnawed bone when the window alarm chirped. Dick had told him that he didn't need to carry anything on him when he was just roaming around the apartment, but Jason needed to have at least one knife on him to feel comfortable. Habits were habits, and Dick's assurances that the apartment was as safe as safe could be wasn't enough to undo years of packing. He kept seated, leaning his weight forward and resting his hand on the knife he had hidden in the top of his boot. He could spring forward with real force behind him---and did, when an oily shadow in the darkened windowsill moved on its own. 

"Don't," the shadow cautioned him in a firm, quiet voice. It leaned into the light, and he took a step back. He'd recognize those pointy ears anywhere. 

And Jason realized that the new Batgirl was a hell of a lot different than the original. She was smaller---much smaller; Babs had been closer to six feet than five, even without the heels---and there wasn't anything about her that pointed to bright girlishness. She was completely covered in ink-black material, not a shred of skin bared. This Batgirl blended in ominously, the thin outline of a yellow bat on her chest the only bit of color on her. 

The effect was impressive. She was way more _Bat_ than _girl_. Jason tucked his knife back into his boot.

"Huh," he said, wondering---and not idly---how she'd managed to sneak in without setting off more than the quietest of the alarms. "I've heard a lot about you. And by that I mean that I've heard your name tossed around, but they've avoided telling me anything at all. You're a very mysterious customer, Batgirl number two." 

"That makes…" She paused, the folds in her mask rearranging. She was frowning, like she had to really root around for the right words. "…two. Of us. Robin number two." 

Oh, he liked this one, Jason immediately decided. His replacement would be seen as a shitstain upon humanity until proven otherwise, but Barbara's replacement was someone he could like.

She was different, and different was interesting. 

"Two of a kind," he agreed, and stepped back from the window. It wasn't a verbal invitation to come inside, but she seemed to understand it, anyway. "They don't talk about me much, do they? Ah, _batguilt._ Nothing quite like it." 

"He told me things," Batgirl said, her cape slithering behind her as she hopped down from her perch on the sill. "Took me to meet you. Where you were buried. Where he… _thought_ you were buried." 

"'He'?" 

She placed her palm over her chest, tapping between the pointed ears of the yellow Bat symbol with her fingertips. 

Oh. _Him._ That figured. He'd wanted to mourn with an audience, using his own fuck up as a cautionary tale to keep the new kids in line. Be good, eat your veggies, and follow all of the Batman's rules, or you might end up like poor little Jason. 

His upper lip curled. 

"What'd he tell you?" 

"You love cars. Girls. Green. Robin. Fighting. Ne…the ice cream with three colors. You want to prove something… _always."_

So, Bruce had waxed winsome at his graveside. Cute. 

"I can't say I know much about you, cupcake," Jason said, flopping back down on the couch. He rested his ankle on his knee, folding his arms behind his head. "What do _you_ love?" 

"Not cupcake," she said, and looked pretty damn menacing for a little black bat whose head didn't even reach the middle of his chest. "Batgirl." 

"Forgive me, Batgirl," Jason said, sweeping a hand dramatically. "No pet names. Duly noted." 

"Too many names already." 

"You didn't answer my question, y'know," he pointed out. She just sort of stood in the middle of the floor in a neutral stance, arms loose at her sides. What a weird little bird. "And that's not fair. I figure we should be even, you and me." 

"I love…fighting. The Bat. Doing…what's right." She paused again, bowing her head like she really had to think about it. "I love tea. Family---your family. They're mine too, now. Playing tag. Ice cream, but I haven't had your favorite kind before. Spoiler doesn't like it. I eat cookie dough with her, sometimes."

And her voice was starting to warm, just a bit. There was something unnerving about the way she talked and moved, but that merely piqued his curiosity. Jason had always been all about indulging his curiosity. Bruce had always chastised him, saying that curiosity killed the cat. 

But Catwoman had taught him the second verse: curiosity killed the cat, but satisfaction brought it back. 

Words to live by, he figured. He had come back once already, after all. 

"Here's an idea," Jason said, clapping his hands together cheerfully. "I call big brother Nightwing and see if he'll let me go out and play. If he says yes, you show me how you play tag. Maybe we can get some ice cream later." 

She cocked her head to the side, more avian than human.

"…I'm supposed to patrol." 

"You can patrol me," he said, gesturing at himself with a roll of his wrist. "I'm more dangerous than anything in the 'Haven. Ask anyone." 

Batgirl contemplated this for another moment. A deep thinker, this one.

"Okay," she said, after a thorough inner debate. Jason smiled widely, getting up. Batgirl followed him to the kitchen---not physically, but by tracking his every step. The lenses in her cowl were as black as the rest of the suit, but he could _feel_ the intensity of her stare. 

Dick's cell was on speed dial. It rang four times---the time it took for him to realize that one of the compartments in his gauntlets was vibrating, then fumble the phone open with gloved fingers. 

"Hey, birdbrain," Jason said, leaning his hip against the counter. He could just barely see the tips of Batgirl's ears out of the side of his eye. She was peering at him from around the corner. "Got a question for you." 

"Shoot," Dick said, sounding half-breathless. Wind whistled in the background. 

"The new Batgirl came over. Short, dark, and not so chatty, but I'll take any date I can get. Do I have your permission to go play outside with her?"

Dick laughed---loudly and genuinely amused. 

"Sure. But fair warning, Jay. It doesn't matter how big you are or how good you think you've gotten---you don't have a chance against her. Cassandra is out of all of our leagues." 

_Cassandra._ He'd given him both her name, and the weird realization that he trusted him enough to fork over someone else's ID---or trusted him so much, he didn't even think about protecting her from him. 

Dick did things to his head. Not all of them were good things. 

 

*

 

Batgirl's version of tag was pretty much the best fucking thing Jason had ever played, and he wished that he'd thought of it himself years ago. Whoever was 'it' chased the other person---through alleys, up fire escapes, across rooftops---and when they caught them, they punched or kicked to transfer the 'it' over to them. It was fast, exhilarating, and completely brutal. Dick hadn't been exaggerating about Cassandra's abilities. She was swifter and stronger than anyone he'd ever come up against. Jason had thought he'd seen some of the best of the best, but she was in a whole other category. He recognized some of her moves, and not all of them were ones that Bruce had handed down. 

Batgirl had dipped her cup in some of the darker wells. Jason knew, because he had, too. 

It was a strange feeling, watching her. He spent most of his time as 'it', because it was difficult to keep pace with her. He didn't mind, because she was gorgeous in movement, absolutely effortless. He might as well have been watching a dancer, the way she moved. It dredged up more questions than answers, though---questions like where Bruce had found this one, whose hands she'd passed through, and why she had been accepted, when her gracefulness had a lethal edge to it. 

Jason got the feeling that she could take him apart without breaking a sweat. It was both thrilling and humbling. It'd been a while since he'd gone up against anyone who made him feel like a lumbering oaf. 

After an hour of 'play', he was bruised and exhausted, but he couldn't stop grinning. Instead of announcing that the game was over, Batgirl just crouched on the edge of a rooftop and waited for him to catch up to her. 

"You're good," Jason wheezed, leaning over with his hands on his knees. _"Damn_ , you're good. How'd you get so good?" 

The tilt of her chin made him think that she was preening, in her own way. 

"I can read you," she said. She didn't even sound winded. "See what you'll do, and what your muscles are thinking. Other people read books. I read people. I used to…I didn't have words. I could only speak with my fists, and my feet." 

That was more cryptic than he could unpack. He made a mental note to shake Dick down for details, later. 

"Well, it works for you. Congrats on that, I guess." 

Jason straightened, running his hands through his sweaty hair. He hadn't had a workout that thorough since back with Egon. He'd been cracking open skulls and leaving 'practice dummies' with injuries that they'd never really walk away from, so this felt a lot better. He didn't regret the things that he'd learned, or how he'd learned them---those men had been the scummiest of scumbags, and they'd more than earned their splintered bones---but he hadn't exactly loved the process, either. 

He just understood that some things were unavoidable. It felt like he was the _only_ one who understood that. 

"A fighter fights. A killer kills. You are a fighter." 

That chased a chill up his spine.

She sounded so goddamn _sure_. Like she could see inside his head, and answer the question that Jason had a lot of trouble answering for himself. It made him angry---the kind of anger that crested over him, making his hands bunch into fists and his blood roar in his ears. 

"Hey! Any chance of three being company?"

Nightwing popped up over the edge of the rooftop, hoisting himself up with liquid grace and a stupidly wide grin. 

And again, Dick had shown up to mediate. First with Bruce, then with Tim, and now with Cassandra. No way was that accidental. He was purposefully elbowing in, and Jason had to wonder _why._ They both knew that these little visits had been organized by Bruce, and that they all were reporting right back to him. They expected that. So the question was, was Dick nervous about what they'd see in him, or what he would say to them? Because something had him edgy enough to push him to oversee any contact he had with the rest of the 'family'. 

Or did he straight up not _trust_ him with the new kids? Jason could understand why he'd be antsy about leaving him alone with the replacement Robin, but he had no beef with Batgirl. 

Whatever his reasoning, Jason didn't like it. It was only too easy to transfer his anger from Batgirl to Nightwing. 

"No," Batgirl said abruptly. "You can't play with us." 

"What?" 

"You have to patrol. Three is…" She cocked her head slightly to the left, looking at Jason expectantly. At least, he thought that she was looking at him. Tough to tell with her bug-eyed mask.

"A crowd," he agreed, nodding. 

Nightwing seemed bewildered. 

"Are you joking, or---?" 

"No," Cassandra said flatly. 

Dick lifted his hands in treaty, but his smile looked put-upon. 

"Okay. Okay. I'll be a good adult," he said, shaking his head with a slightly exasperated laugh. Glancing at Jason, he added, "Be back home before four." 

That word choice rippled through him like a shiver. Home. Not 'my place', or even 'my apartment': _home._

The kicker was, he doubted that Dick had even thought about what he was saying, or what'd it would mean to him. Dick was just being Dick. 

"Will do," Jason said, watching him vault back over the edge of the building. The entire world was a jungle gym for him. Most people would have just jumped down, or grappled, or took the rickety fire escape. Nightwing flipped, flew, and tumbled. 

He realized that he'd gone silent, retreating into his thoughts, for a little too long. It was easy to forget that Batgirl was there. She didn't project her presence the way most people did. She barely rippled the shadows at all. 

"He makes you angry. And he makes you happy. That's hard." 

Jason just shrugged. Her little talent was starting to get to him. 

"Don't hurt him," Cassandra added, her soft voice pulled steely-tight. "You hurt him, I hurt you." 

"For the record? I didn't mean to hit him. I was." He stopped himself short, then huffed a hard breath. "Having a nightmare. Clocked him by accident. And you be sure to tell Bruce that, since I guess that _Robin_ didn't. Like you said---'I'm a fighter'."

There was a little bit of disdain mixed up in his voice. How could she have seen that? How could she have read _that_ from him? 

"No," she said, sounding impatient. "I mean...his heart. Because I will hurt you if you do that." 

Vertigo tugged hard behind his navel, like he'd taken a step straight off the side of the roof. She knew, was what she was saying. That freaky body language thing of hers had allowed her to connect the dots between him and Dick. 

And she read his reaction, too. 

"I won't tell Batman. You make Nightwing angry…but happy, too." Cassandra said, and the way her mask pulled made him think that she was smiling underneath. It was brief, though. The wrinkles smoothed back out. "You have to watch him. He's…tired." 

"Yeah," Jason said, scrubbing a hand over his face. That was on him. His fault, because he couldn't sort his own damn head out. "Yeah, I know." 

He decided, then and there, that this would be the last night he pretended to be a good little boy. 

 

*

 

The rest of Dick's life didn't pause. It didn't wait for him to figure out what he was doing, what he had done, or what he was going to do once Jason's probationary period had run its course. In a perfect world, it would have given him the time to deal with it all---but in a perfect world, there wouldn't have been a need for him to pull on his fingerstripes on a nightly basis. Jason's sanity would never have been in question, and he wouldn't have to worry about the dark shapes in his head translating to bruises if he didn't sleep lightly. He tried not to dwell on the idea of a perfect world, because it wasted the mental energy he needed to deal with all of the problems in his imperfect world.

Dick had barely been able to keep up with his life before Jason had thrown a massive wrench in the works. He had the turnover at the station, and the 'good cop' secret cabal with Amy, and everything connected to his big, nasty, and unfortunately untouchable pal Roly, and the lousy bit of business with Tarantula poised atop the pile of crap. He couldn't prioritize any of these things over the other---Tarantula was either going to get herself or someone else killed, Amy's group was the overtaxed heart of a weakened police force, and Roland Desmond had a deathgrip on the 'Haven, even as death slowly courted him---so nothing could be dropped. He couldn't make room for Jason, even though he had to.

And Dick knew that was living dangerously. He knew that he was risking having the whole leaning tower of problems topple over on his head, but what else was he supposed to do? In situations like these, he defaulted to 'what would Bruce do'? And Bruce would handle it. Somehow, he'd make it work.

But Dick wasn't Bruce. He didn't know his limits. He never realized he'd pushed himself over the edge until he hit the ground. He was Bruce Wayne's ward, but he was still a Flying Grayson. And it seemed like there was only one way for a Flying Grayson to permanently exit the ring.

The fall was a literal one. He slipped.

And what a dumb way to go. Dick had probably had a grand total of four hours of sleep in as many days, and he'd hit the wall. Anyone who lived a dual life was familiar with their limitations, and they knew how many days they could function until they got sloppy. He'd thoroughly exhausted all of his second winds. Technically, it was a small mistake---an unsteady step on a three-inch strip of second story window ledge. His ankle twisted, and not even the grip of his boots could keep him upright. 

Dick's fingers caught empty air as he fell. It wasn't enough time to fire a line. Irrationally, he remembered his father explaining to him that even a cat couldn't land on its feet if it didn't have the time to find them before it hit the ground. The fall was high enough to _hurt_ , but too quick and jarring to prevent. His reflexes were sluggish. Dick was just so damn tired---and it wasn't Jason's fault, he didn't blame Jason, he couldn't blame Jason because he knew that he blamed himself for too much already. 

Dick landed on his back. Curling at the last moment saved his skull, but it was still a messy landing. Messy, flailing, and painful. Embarrassing. 

He stared at the sky, blinking dazedly at the raindrops smattering his face, and wondered if he even wanted to try moving his limbs. He'd hit hard, and for a stunned moment, he was afraid to find out if he'd lost anything in the fall. That particular fear had been a part of him long before he'd come home to find Babs wheelchair-bound. 

The air had been punched from his lungs, so his head swam from pain, exhaustion, and oxygen depravation. It almost made him giddy---what would Bruce have said, if he'd seen him fall off a ledge like some kind of amateur? He would have sent him home like a disobedient child. He would have pulled him out from under the weight of his responsibilities, and Dick would've been too ashamed of falling short of his expectations to be relieved. 

But then he heard the heavy crunch of boots hitting wet cement, footsteps, and then something blocked the rain.

Dick opened his eyes, blinking past raindrops, and realized that a biggish kind of person was crouched beside him. His hood cast a deep and angular shadow over his face.

"Get up."

Oh. Jason. Jason had followed him. Dick wasn't as surprised as he should have been. Jason said that he was full of himself, that he didn't know him half as well as he claimed to, but they were all formed around the same rough shapes. 

The only reason that Jason had seemed so compliant about his house arrest was that he hadn't been following the rules. Dick couldn't be angry. He would've done the same thing.

His arm worked when he moved it, taking the hand that Jason was offering him. The wind had been knocked out of him and he'd definitely bruised a couple of ribs, but knowing how to fall had saved him from any lasting damage.

Story of his life.

"Yell at me about breaking the rules later," Jason said, yanking him to his feet. "Finish this first."

"How...?"

"How did I circumvent your security alarms? Short answer: you probably don't want to know." Jason paused, frowning down at him from the depths of his hood. "Are you going to tell me what we're doing scoping out the mall of the dead, or do I just get to figure it out as we go?" 

The mall had been an attempt at jump starting the 'Haven's economy, but it had fizzled instead of jolted. The 'Havenites had to have money to spend money, and the economy had to have money to have a pulse. The mall construction hadn't even finished completely, so the place was a graveyard of hollow spaces papered with for lease signs, the skeletal shops where the funds had run out long before construction could finish. 

It was eerie as hell. The elements, the mangy wildlife, and the homeless roosted there at night. Asbestos Town USA didn't disappoint. The wildest of the wildlife were bipedal, and they lived in the abandoned nooks and crannies like the half-functional mall. 

"Coke bust," Dick said shortly, rolling the shoulder that he'd fallen on. It clicked weirdly. His body was starting to complain more than usual. "I traced a major trafficker here. We're doing this my way."

"Of course. Since your way was having such stellar results," Jason deadpanned. He should have been grateful that he'd said _we_ , but this was Jason. "Excuse me if I'd rather not end up on my back in an alley, big brother."

It was an ugly thing to say, however literal. Dick's skin crawled with irritation. Jason had yet to completely grow out of being his annoying little brother. Tim's passive, intelligent way of analyzing a situation before engaging had spoiled him. Jason had always been headstrong and mouthy in the field. He'd somehow managed to forget exactly how headstrong and mouthy.

"This isn't up for debate. You follow my lead, or you go back to the apartment. Clear?"

"Crystal. We'll save the methodology debate for pillow talk," Jason said, and squeezed Dick's shoulder. "You good to go?"

"I'll be fine," he said dismissively. "Just a little bruised."

"One Nightwing, lightly tenderized. How'd you know that was just what I'd ordered?"

Jay was full of wolfish grins. He was happy to be out, his entire body loose and comfortable. All of the tension lines through his back and shoulders had been erased.

And that was why Dick didn't send him back. He was elated, like a dog that was finally being taken for a walk after weeks of inactivity. Jason had saved him, so he owed it to him to at least let him try. Batman would disapprove, but Blüdhaven wasn't his city. He couldn't call all the shots.

It was a feeble justification, but a justification all the same.

"C'mon," he said, and shot a line to the rooftop. He hoped that he'd pulled off the rough approximation of Batman's authoritative voice, though he wasn't sure how much good it'd do him. Jason didn't snap to attention and fall into line when Bruce barked. He hadn't been conditioned the same way.

The situation was easier to assess from above. The roof of the mall was latticed with glass, though the support arches were wide enough to walk across. They scaled toward the lights, which conveniently lit the scene below. The mall had officially been closed for five hours, but it looked like _someone_ was still doing business.

The pet store---Fido n' Friends---had its lights on. And was being guarded by an armed man. 

Which was pretty suspicious, really. 

"What do you see?"

"Two fronts are closing shop. All hot merch and product must go-go- _go_ , and it has to move before the mall reopens." Jason paused, taking a few slow breaths while he surveyed the situation. "I already watched four shifts change out---before I saw _your_ dumb ass fall off the roof. There are twenty-three men in all. Eighteen are armed, but only six of them are carrying with confidence. That one---" He jerked his chin toward the man currently standing guard outside of the pet store. "---Watch out for him. Fancies himself a cop killer. Slick's got a knife strapped between his shoulderblades---you can see it in his posture. Tell him to lace his hands behind his head, and he'll put four inches of blade in you before you realize he's not actually interested in complying." Another couple of slow breaths. He pointed to a man on a level below, who had an obvious bulge of a gun stuffed in the back of his pants. "Watch out for that one, too. His piece matches his ego, not his skill. He's likely to fire wild. Even more likely to shoot his own ass off."

Dick tried not to let his surprise show, but Jason was absolutely right. Unnervingly so. He could see it all, now that he'd pointed the details out, but he hadn't seen half of that himself. Jason had picked apart the situation.

Dick didn't want to think about how he'd managed to tune his eyes like that. He wasn't sure even Bruce would have been able to identify things that quickly.

"Good," Dick said, managing to shake the thought. "So, we're going to go in through the food court. We can slip behind the---"

"Do you want to get shot? 'Cause it sounds like you want to get shot."

Dick glanced over at him, jaw set.

"You have a better idea?"

Jason just kind of hummed thoughtfully. He rubbed his chin, leather gloves rasping against his stubble.

"These guys are Sulieman Thomas Ali's goons. Not Calizzis or Minh's, right?"

"Yeah."

Jason clapped his hands together briskly.

 _"Super._ Follow my lead. If it looks like I might get shot, then you should probably throw a few of your---" he mimed a flicking motion with his fingers. "---what do you call your throwing thingies?"

"Wing-Dings," Dick said, frowning. Jason rolled his eyes. 

"You need to stop naming shit. Like, yesterday. That is the stupidest thing I've heard since you told me you call your bike the Night-Cycle."

Jason pulled back his hood, scrubbing his fingers through his hair. He smiled, but it wasn't a good smile. There was something predatory in the way he bared his teeth.

He tapped a cigarette out of his pack, pinching it between his lips while he untucked the back of his shirt.

"Gimme one of your escrima," he said out of the corner of his mouth. "Need to look like I'm packing, and _someone_ locked up my glocks."

It'd been the very first thing that Dick had insisted on. No guns. Not in his place. He handed over one of the sticks, giving him what he hoped translated as a you'd-better-know-what-you're-doing look. Jason tucked it into the waistband of his jeans, covering it with his jacket. It still left a bulge against his lower back, visible if you knew how to look for that kind of thing.

And then, he was off. Jason moved with a natural swagger, relaxed in a way that not many people could replicate under pressure. He adopted a slouch, shoulders curled inward, like someone whose mother had never nagged him into standing straight. His body language was purposefully sloppy, reading as twitchy inexperience slathered liberally with bravado.

Had he not known Jason, Dick would have bought his performance. He would have been the one he'd earmark as the weakest in the group, the easiest target. Dick hadn't really seen him in action in years---their fights hadn't counted; Jason got stupid when they fought, and he'd admitted as much himself---and the dissonance between the Jason of his memories and the Jason in front of him now had never been more unnerving.

Jason hadn't been exaggerating when he'd said he had trained to match the Batman. He was good. Much, much better than Dick himself had been at his age. Possibly better than he was now.

That was a terrifying line of thought. Dick tried to gulp it down with a hard swallow, but he couldn't quite rid himself of the memory of Jason snarling _I'm going to kill him. Him, and that fucking clown_ with his hands wrapped around his throat.

Jason stopped at one of the corners of the building, arms crossed over his chest. He looked like he was keeping watch---and doing a piss poor job of it. He craned his neck, peering suspiciously around the empty mall. He was patient. Painfully patient. Fifteen minutes inched past before he pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and patted down his pockets. Jason checked his coat twice, then ran a hand through his hair in obvious irritation.

And then he turned to the guy who was actually keeping watch. Dick read his lips: "Hey, man, you got a light?"

It was gutsy. No, it was beyond gutsy. It was stupidly reckless. Bruce wouldn't have gone for such a risky plan. They would have done things by the book---shock, scatter, and use the element of surprise to thin the numbers as safely as possible. Ali's men were not a part of a family gang, so there was a chance that they wouldn't notice _how_ new the new face in their ranks was. A slim chance.

Just wide enough a chance for Jason, apparently.

The thug produced a disposable lighter, tossing it to Jason. He gave him a jaunty little two-fingered salute, lighting his cigarette and taking a long drag. When the guy leaned over to take the lighter back, Jason whipped out, striking his throat and head so quickly, he crumpled before he could even make a sound.

Jason dragged him to the shadow of an alcove and took his place. He continued to smoke, unruffled. By the time the shift replacement showed up, he'd finished his cig and taken out another. Jason repeated the game, dragging the second unconscious man to the side.

For the first time since jumping down, Jason looked directly at Dick's perch. That was a signal. That was a get-your-ass-down-here. He'd slimmed down the gun-wielding gangbangers by two, and had ensured that they'd have at least eight minutes until the next guard showed up for his shift. 

Eight minutes was a lot of time, if you knew how to use it. Dick wasn't sure if he should be apprehensive of the new skills Jason had, or impressed. He decided to think about that later. Or never. Probably never, for his own sanity. He dropped down lightly, following him into the store.

"Holy plastic piscine, Nightwing," Jason laughed softly, jerking a thumb at the display behind the counter. The fish in the aquariums were fake---obviously so. The floated dolefully at the top of the scummy water. "They don't try hard in this town, do they?"

"Why would they?" Dick sighed, shaking his head. "Up until last month, the police were cozied up in the mobs' collective pockets. They haven't had to put the effort in."

"Sad," Jason said with a reproachful cluck of his tongue. "Really, it's just sad. They should have some pride in their work."

 _Like you?_ Dick wanted to say, but didn't. He didn't want to get the full definition of what Jason considered 'his work'. 

The product was packed into a large crate---one marked with the logo of the pet store, with cautions about a live animal being inside. It'd be enough to steer away the more cursory inspections, since most people didn't want to have an uncaged and possibly dangerous animal on their hands. Kind of clever, in a dumb way.

"We need to get rid of this," Jason said, turning over one of the wrapped cakes in his gloved hand. There was something dark and very hard in his expression. 

"What? The police have it covered."

"You really trust them to handle this much product? You might think that your pals in blue are squeaky clean, but you've got more holes in your force than swiss cheese." He dropped the coke back into the crate, dusting off his hands. "You can't plug every hole, supercop. Do you really want to see this shit back on your streets?"

He had a point. A good point. Dick didn't want to acknowledge it, but it was the truth. 

This seemed to be a running trend, lately.

"That's what I thought," Jason answered his silence, and started unloading things from the various pockets in his jacket. He popped in a pair of nasal filters, and Dick followed suit. The dust alone would be enough to impair them, so they had to be careful. 

"I'm trying to work through the system," Dick argued, watching as Jason produced a small flask of starter fluid from his seemingly Poppins-esque pockets. "It's the only way to reset Blüdhaven."

“That's the kid glove treatment, and you know it," he said, liberally dousing the neatly-wrapped bundles. "A place like this---a place this overrun and corrupt---you have to be willing to break it. You’re not going to be able to pull up all the weeds. The best thing you could do is slash and burn.” 

He said it with such conviction. Such surety. Like he'd sized up the situation as thoroughly as he had the thugs in the mall, and saw things that Dick just wasn't seeing on his own. It sunk to the pit of his stomach. 

“That’s not how we do things.” 

“That’s not how _he_ does things,” Jason said pointedly, flicked the disposable lighter he'd stolen from the guard, and lit the coke. 

_"Hey!"_ A tattoo-swathed bear of a man boomed from the front of the room. Dick recognized him as Mr. I-Don't-Know-What-I'm-Doing-But-Look-At-My-Nifty-Gun. Great. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?" 

"Aaaaand that's our cue to skedaddle," Jason said with a nod toward the back door. The click of the semi's safety was the only warning they got before the man opened up with a spray of bullets. With that many bullets in the air---twenty rounds per second, to be precise---ducking and hiding was a surefire way to get punched full of holes. The best thing to do was to keep moving, to move unpredictably, and to stay away from walls and floors. Ricochets were just as dangerous as the shots that'd been aimed. 

Fortunately, that kind of movement was what came naturally to Dick. And even more fortunately, Jason had spent a considerable chunk of his life acting as his shadow. He led, and Jason moved with him. Even with his new bulk, he managed to be graceful in motion. 

They cut a zig-zagged path to the back door, which opened up to a platform between floors. There would be an exit on the roof, as well as one on the bottom level. From the sounds of things, reinforcements were coming at them from both options. 

"Want to clean up?" Dick asked, all but feeling the hectic energy pouring off of Jason. This was what he lived for. This is what they all lived for. 

"Might as well, since we're already here," Jason agreed gamely. This wasn't the worst that they'd dealt with---not at all. The gang would be more trouble if they got away to deal another day, so incapacitating them and leaving them for the police was the right thing to do. 

"I'll take high, you take low," Dick said, jerking his chin at the stairs. 

"But what if I wanted to take high?" He muttered, proving yet again that he could still be a surly teenager, no matter his age or size. "You don't have a monopoly on flips." 

"Just do it!" 

"Low it is!" Jason laughed, and swung over the side of the railing. 

For Dick, the nice thing about fighting was that he didn't really have to think while he did it. Movement was a language that he was fluent in. He was forever aware of exactly where all of his limbs were at all time, and never had to consciously control them. He knew the precise angles he needed to bend in to duck past the singing path of a bullet, the exact amount of strength he needed to use to leap from one wall to another. A lifetime of flying, falling, and fighting had made it all one flowing script. He didn't have to think about what he was doing---didn't have to think about anything at all. 

Rationally, he knew that there had to be something profoundly wrong with him. Normal, well-adjusted people didn't find gunfights relaxing. Normal, well-adjusted people would have wet their tights upon the simple realization that they'd brought a stick to a gunfight. Then again, the views of the normal, well-adjusted person were purely hypothetical, because Dick didn't know very many normal, well-adjusted people. 

He did count, though. On the upper floor, there were six men---one of them being the hotshot from inside the store, though he had run out of ammo and had been easy to dispatch. The six men he took care of, plus the two that Jason had already knocked out, left fifteen men still unaccounted for. 

Dick didn't like that math. He was sure that Jason could take care of himself, but not sure enough. He only had one escrima, and he was used to guns. Fighting with guns was completely different from blunt weapons. You had to think differently, move differently, and plan your path differently. Dick didn't know how long it'd been since he'd given up on Bruce's teachings and nonlethal weaponry. 

His gut tugged at him. Told him to double back. His gut feelings were usually spot-on, but rarely timely. 

Dick secured the knocked-out gangsters with zipties, turning toward the stairs again. There were a set of escalators, but they'd been turned off, a security grille lowered at the foot of them in order to keep people from climbing up manually. A flash of red caught the corner of his eye, and he saw his hooded brother standing on the other side of the grille. He took the escalator stairs down three at a time, offering him a grin. 

"Upper level's cleaned up and secured," he said. "How'd you fare? Sorry that you got the short end of the stick. I wouldn't have suggested splitting up if I'd known it was that uneven. I just didn't want to get boxed into the stairwell, y'know?" 

"Yeah," Jason said, nodding slightly. "I got it. All fifteen. You're welcome." 

There was a strain in his voice, a note that made Dick's lungs seize. As he got closer, he smelled it. 

He breathed in, tasting rust. The smell coated the inside of his mouth, metallic. 

There was blood on Jason's shirt. The end of the escrima in his hand dripped steadily.

“…Jason?” He could hear the question in his own voice, the childlike fear: _what did you do, what have you done, are you okay, tell me you’re okay, please be okay, please tell me that you didn't cross the line again._

Jason smiled. 

"Don't worry," he rasped, "Most of it’s mine." 

He tried to keep standing, but he couldn't quite manage it. The fingers he had hooked in the roller grille kept him from collapsing, but his knees gave out on him. The front of his hoodie was rapidly soaking through, and Dick was suddenly terrified that the hand he had pressed against his stomach might actually be keeping his insides _in_. 

He'd been stabbed. Dick was horrified with himself. His first assumption was that Jason had hurt someone else, that he'd done wrong. He hadn't even entertained the thought that he might be injured. He couldn't get a full hand through the slats, but he desperately grabbed at his fingers and squeezed. They were cool. 

"Think I got nicked," Jason mumbled. "Got a band-aid on you, Big Bird?"

Dick shook the security grille, hard. The metal barrier creaked and rattled, but it didn't give. He couldn't get to him. Inches away from him, but he couldn't help him. He couldn't _get to him_. He'd have to leave, run back up the escalator, and rush to the lower level.

This absolutely could not be happening. 

"Stay there," Dick commanded, though there wasn't much of a chance of Jason getting very far. His face had gone a sickly gray, all the color draining out through the wound in his belly. "Hold on, Little Wing. I'm coming." 

And then he started running. He didn't waste a single leap, a single step, skidding around corners and landing hard enough to jolt through all of his joints. It didn't matter. Adrenaline softened the jarring pain that lanced through him, pumping him with one last second wind. 

It couldn't have taken him more than forty-five seconds to get down to the lower level, but in that time, Jason had fully collapsed. He was curled on his side, a sticky pool spreading beneath him.

Each beat of Jason’s heart caused another sorry gush of red red blood to seep into the sodden fabric of his sweatshirt. Dick couldn’t breathe. There was so much of it. He was bleeding out, wasn’t he? He was dying. 

“Jay, _look at me!”_ No, no, he couldn’t, he said he wouldn’t, he couldn't come back just to bleed out in a ghost town of a mall thanks to a knife-wielding thug. He pressed his hands to the wound, steeling himself for the slippery warmth. Dick wasn't anywhere near squeamish, but there was just so much blood. He could feel it on his hands, under his nails, the smell searing his nose. 

After a couple of tries, Jason's gray-blue eyes fluttered open slowly, as if his lashes were suddenly too heavy. He couldn't seem to focus on Dick’s face, even though he was looking right at him. 

"Look at me. Don't do this to me!" Dick howled, trying to get him to fight. If he fought, he'd stay with him. He had to stay with him. "You stupid, stupid son of a bitch. I told you to stay at home, but you never listen! Why won't you just _listen?!"_

"Shh," Jason croaked, reaching up and patting his cheek. His fingers left sticky smears. "One for the…the swear jar…"

Keeping pressure on the wound with one hand, he pushed his fingertips to his mask. 

"Oracle? Oracle, please tell me you're there. I need you. We---I---code black. It's Jason. I need EMS, and I need an aeromedical transport to Gotham, and we have to move fast, 'cause he's bleeding out, and I can't just take him to the local hospital---they're understaffed and the sanitation is---" 

He knew he was babbling, but he felt strung out, high and about to throw up. He was losing him, really losing him, losing him _again_ , and there was nothing he could do to stop it, nothing at all--- 

"Breathe, Nightwing."

Barbara's voice in his ear was soothing. It trickled down his spine. 

_"Please,"_ he said again, like begging would somehow make a difference. 

"Stay with him. I'm already on it." 

From there, everything was a blur of nauseating movement that slowly, slowly congealed around Dick. He kept talking to Jason until the paramedics got there, all but yelling at him whenever he seemed to start to fade. It was surprising that he managed to stay even semi-conscious, considering how much blood he was losing. Dick knelt beside him, keeping steady pressure on the wound, but there was only so much that he could do. He didn't carry anything strong enough to cut the pain, or supplies hefty enough to even begin to start patching him up. 

The ambulance took him, and even though it killed him to do so, Dick had to let him go. The police would be waiting at the hospital, and they'd want to slap a pair of cuffs on Nightwing. He couldn't jeopardize his identity or risk being taken in, so he called Oracle again just to make _sure_ she'd already made arrangements for Jason. He had no prints, no record, and no identity. Babs had an airlift waiting for him as soon as he arrived, and they just let the staff come to their own conclusions about the John Doe important enough to have a private medical transport. They flew him to Gotham, to Leslie, to Bruce, where he'd get the best care and zero questions.

Dick stripped out of his suit in the alley where he'd stashed his motorcycle, gagging reflexively when he removed his gloves. They were stained red-black up to his elbows. It wasn't the blood itself that choked him---it was the knot of bitter guilt that came with it. Blüdhaven was _his_ problem. It should've been him. 

Gunning it, he wove dangerously through traffic, making it to Gotham at a truly breakneck speed. 

If Jason died _again_ , and he wasn't there _again_ , he wouldn't be able to forgive himself. Bruce, Alfred, and Tim---his family, minus Cass; Batgirl was watching the streets---were waiting for him at the clinic. Jason was stable at the moment, they told him. Jason was in surgery. Jason would be in surgery for four or five hours, at least. His guts were a mess, and he'd lost a lot of blood.

Dick had dissolved into helpless, strained laughter. They had no idea how much blood. He did, though. It'd soaked through his gloves, and was dried in flaky moons beneath his nails. Recognizing his budding hysterics, Bruce had guided him to a chair and told him to sit. It hadn't been a suggestion---it'd been a command from the Batman. And like it or not, he'd obediently followed it. 

Sitting still was impossible for him on a good day, and Dick was nauseous and trembling from an insane adrenaline crash. Usually, he thrived on the rush, even sought it out. Most people experienced peaked adrenal response maybe a half dozen times a year, but it was an everyday thing for him, and always had been. It was rare that he suffered the jittery aftermath that made a normal man want to cry and puke all at once. 

Tim didn't leave his side. It was a weird turnabout, having his littlest brother offering him some much-needed support, but Dick accepted it gratefully. Tim held onto his hand tightly, regurgitating a stream of medical facts and figures. Robin wasn't very good at comforting others, but for him, he tried his best. Cold hard data was what comforted him, so that's what he gave him. Tim's thin, calloused fingers tangled up with his was enough, honestly. Dick just needed physical contact. 

And he wouldn't be getting it from Bruce. The Batman alternated between sitting stock-still in a chair on the other side of the waiting room, clearly unapproachable, and pacing like a caged animal. He didn't say anything to Dick, but he felt his accusation nonetheless. 

Jason had been his responsibility. He'd told him to watch Jason. He'd told him to take care of Jason. And Dick had failed miserably on both counts.

What made him think that he could be the protector of an entire city when he couldn't even save the people that he loved the most? This time, he'd been there. He couldn't use his old excuse. 

Jason got out of surgery a little after six am. Bruce didn't leave his room, and Dick doubted that he would until Jason woke up on his own. Tim fidgeted and silently worried until Dick told him that he should go home before he got in trouble. His little brother gave him a fierce hug before he left, swearing to call him during his lunch period.

And that left Dick in the waiting room by himself. It was so quiet, so sterile, and so suffocating. He was profoundly alone with his thoughts, and there was absolutely nothing that Dick hated more. He stumbled to the restroom, finally losing the fight with his stomach. He threw up until his belly cramped painfully, then washed his hands with scalding-hot water until he got every last fleck of red from under his nails. 

When he got back to the waiting room, Babs was there. She had coffee. The smell turned his stomach, but he couldn't keep awake on the shaky dregs of adrenaline alone. Dick took the paper cup with a weary nod of thanks, opening the travel lid so that it'd cool. Once it was down to a manageable temperature, he'd just chug the whole thing and hope that he could keep it down. 

Babs wheeled herself to his left, the best approximation of sitting next to him. She lightly rested her palm on his forearm. It wasn’t much comfort, but it was a lot, coming from her. Things had been strained between them, so her calming presence was a blessing that he didn't know if he actually deserved.

“Not even back for two weeks, and I almost get him killed,” Dick said, after an overlong moment. He had to say something. The silence was filling up his lungs, making his voice grate over each individual word. 

“It isn’t your fault that he followed you," Babs said, shaking her head. As the eternal fly on the wall, she knew, too. "Your ability to pile on the guilt is infamous, but this one isn’t on your head.” 

“I told Bruce I’d look out for him,” he mumbled, taking an experimental swallow of the coffee. It was still way too hot. He pulled a face as he burned his tongue. Tongue scorched, he could only taste heat. 

“He chose to disobey orders and follow you out. In his position, you would have done the same thing. You men,” Babs said, shaking her head. “You all _leap_ at the chance to die for each other.”

“That’s not true.”

Babs' eyes were reproachfully sharp. _“Isn't _it?__

“Maybe it’s a little true,” he said, sagging around his tasteless, vindictively hot coffee. 

“Mm,” she hummed, carefully noncommittal. She rubbed his bruised knuckles with her thumb. It was a comforting little nonsense movement. He really wanted to drag her into his lap and maybe cry into her hair, leeching up all of her familiarity and stability. He wouldn't touch her, though. It'd be the kind of selfishness that bordered on meanness, and he wouldn't do that to her. “You do this to yourself, Grayson. You really do. You take on the most tragic cases, then torture yourself over it when you can’t fix everything. Blüdhaven, Jason---every lost cause. You're their patron saint.” 

“Guess I’m the king of denial, huh,” he said flatly, feeling his throat itch with tears. He didn’t need to hear this. Not from her. He _knew_. People thought he was oblivious, that he had the vacuous ignorance of a golden retriever, but he knew. 

“Maybe. Maybe you’re completely delusional. Maybe this obsession with saving people at clearly impossible odds is rooted in your parents’ deaths,” she said calmly, coolly. 

Dick’s empty stomach twisted itself into an aptly Gordian knot. 

Right. Maybe he was no better than _Bruce._ He got it. He did. He didn’t need to be reprimanded for clinging to hope---not when he needed that hope more than anything. 

“Or maybe,” Babs continued, squeezing his wrist. “You’re just better at seeing the good in people than the rest of us cynics.” 

Dick swallowed hard. Setting his coffee aside, he folded his other hand over hers and squeezed back.

“Leslie says he’ll pull through okay," she said. "They had to remove his spleen, though. He needed an emergency transfusion, and you-know-who ponied up immediately.” 

He hadn't even known that they needed blood. Nobody had told him. Bruce hadn't given anyone else the option of giving. Dick's fingers knotted and twisted together restlessly in his lap.

“He’ll probably bitch about that,” he said, trying for a wry smile. It sort of folded in on itself, an unsuccessful mask. He was too tired to pretend. 

“All things considered, his complaining would be justified. He has a rough couple of months of recovery ahead of him.” 

"Guess I won't have to worry about him running away. He won't get very far with a belly full of stitches."

"Staples," Babs corrected him, and bile surged up the back of his throat. Stitches hadn't been enough to put him back together again. "Either way, you're right. But I don't think that he had any interest in leaving you."

"I know it sounds egotistical, but---but I think _I’m_ the only reason he’s keeping to the right of the line." He scrubbed his fingers through his hair, shaking his head. "Talia…she _pushed_ him…”

“He’s fighting to keep his head above water," she agreed, taking a sip of her coffee. "But you know as well as I do that a drowning victim is perfectly capable of dragging down anyone who tries to rescue them.”

“That’s just it, though. I don’t think he’ll jeopardize me. He needs me to be his good example. He could have easily taken those guys out, but he didn't. He chose to use nonlethal force, even though he knew it'd leave him open. And I think he did it because of me. Does that even make any sense?” 

“Yes," Babs said, and she didn't sound happy about it. "Because he loves you.” 

“Yeah, well, he’s my brother, and I---” 

“Dick. Please," she interrupted. "I don’t want to do this with you. I _know._ ” 

He turned his head and really looked at her. Babs seemed quiet, firm, and utterly resolute. He wanted to think that she looked sympathetic, too, but he refused to let his imagination take it that far. He opened his mouth to say something---maybe to argue, maybe to apologize---but for once in his life, no words tumbled out. 

“I’ve known since the night you took him in,” she continued, properly diagnosing his silence as shellshock. “I have an alarm set in your apartment to monitor decibel levels between the hours you usually spend patrolling. If anything gets too loud in there, surveillance turns on and I immediately get pinged. You asked me to set up a safety perimeter, so i did. When you and Jason started fighting, it triggered that silent alarm.” 

Babs knew everything.

Dick had received broken ribs that hurt less than that realization. 

“You---you _watched_ us---?” 

“No. Absolutely not," Babs interrupted, her tone clipped. "I recognized that you were exchanging blows with someone you clearly thought was Jason Todd, so I sent the closest person possible to provide you with backup.” 

If he'd had anything in him aside from acid and a single gulp of coffee, he might've lost it, right then. 

“Who?” 

“Tim. He had Redbird, and wasn’t actively engaged with anything else. Given the nature of the situation, I didn’t think that Bruce would have been capable of dealing with it rationally. Whether or not it was really Jason didn’t matter---if you were convinced, I was afraid that he would be, too. I linked Tim into the audio feed, but as soon as things got---as---when it was clear that you’d defused the situation, I cut his connection and told him to double back to Gotham. I think that he put two and two together anyway. He’s a smart kid.” 

Oh. Tim. Dick's face tried out about four anguished expressions all at once, fine muscles twitching. No wonder Tim had been so nervous and hesitant when he'd visited. Dick didn't even want to think about how he'd interpreted the whole situation---what he thought of him, what he thought about what he was doing with a man he frequently called his brother, what it might do to their relationship. 

“That explains so much. So, so much. I’ll have to...have to talk to him about it. God.” Yet another conversation he wasn't sure he could have, but knew that he had to have. Speaking of which: “And---and Bruce?” 

“I haven’t told him. I wouldn’t bank on him not knowing, though.” 

“But if he _knew_ \---knew everything that Jason told me---do you think he’d really leave him with me?” 

“I have two theories," Babs said, holding up two slender fingers. "Theory one: he honestly doesn’t know everything. Maybe Talia was fastidious about scrubbing Jason’s trail. I wouldn’t put it past her, given her investment and her resources. Theory two: he won’t let himself find out. He has his theories, and those were evidence enough to keep him from digging any deeper. It’s possible that he needs Jason to be legitimately back on the right track as much as you do.” 

“Babs, I’m...I’m so sorry. I wanted to tell you. Really, I did. It's messed up, and I know that, but I _swear_ that the last thing I want to do is hurt you, and I---Jason is---”

Babs reached out, lightly touching the side of his face. She stroked his cheek with her fingertips, her expression softening. 

“Stopping you right there, Hunk Wonder. I’m not angry. I was at first, yes. I was furious---you can't blame me for that. But this isn’t about---” She huffed a sigh. “Jealousy. Or even judgment. You and I, we had too much friction because of how difficult it was for you to look at me and not see who I’d been. You brought me back to yesteryear, and I---I can’t go there." Babs had to pause for a long moment, tucking a curl of very red hair behind her ear, before she could continue with her point. "Jason needs to be reminded of who he used to be, and you do that for him. It’s a good thing, seeing as you’re more than likely the only form of therapy that he’ll consent to.” 

He leaned into her hand. He didn't want her to move away. 

“But I hear a but.” 

“But I worry that you can’t keep objective. You can’t see him clearly, _because_ you superimpose who he is now with who he was then. I don’t think that there’s any question that he cares about you, but Dick, he has _always_ toed the line. You have to know that. I wouldn’t be able to forgive myself if I didn’t at least make sure that you know what you’re risking.” 

“He almost died. For me.” 

“Of course he did. How else can anyone prove a point to you or Bruce? Death is the only hard currency he’ll recognize.” She sighed again, taking off her glasses and massaging between her brows with her thumb and forefinger. “I’m sorry. That was out of line.” 

“No,” Dick said, letting his head hang forward and his shoulders curl. The weight had finally settled. What was he thinking? Had he been thinking at all? “You’re right. You’re always right.” 

“I’m not, but I’ll take that compliment. I don’t plan on telling Bruce everything that Jason divulged. If he’s genuine about wanting his old life back, he deserves that chance. But I’m keeping the recording. If Jason crosses the line, or if I think that he’s going to pull you under, I will fill in the blanks for Bruce. I won’t let you sacrifice yourself out of a raging guilt complex.” 

He wanted to argue. Wanted to tell her that she wouldn't need it---Jason had proved that he was willing to die for the cause, and wasn't that enough? But he didn't have the strength to butt up against the wall of Babs' utterly solid logic. She was right. He didn't want her to be, but she was. 

“That’s fair," Dick said. He glanced at her, then away. "Just…if you---if you ever have to... _please_ don’t...” 

“It’ll be truncated. And only the audio file. I promise.” 

"You are, without a doubt, the most brilliant woman I've ever had the pleasure of falling for," Dick said, scrounging up a little bit of glibness before leaning over and kissing her cheek.

"And kind enough not to give you crap about your sudden interest in teenage boys," Babs added with a tired smile. Dick flopped backwards in his chair, grinding the heels of his hands against his eyes and groaning.

"I'm not emotionally prepared to have this conversation."

"And you never will be," she said. "Chin up. You could be having this talk with Bruce." 

Right. Bruce. 

There was always _that_ to look forward to. 

 

*

 

Taking stock of himself and his situation was a deeply-ingrained habit for Jason. It predated Bruce, predated the reach of his memories. Before the Batman had trained him to evaluate himself and his surroundings upon waking, he'd done it for uglier, more mundane reasons. Was he inside a warm room, or was he curled up in a doorway, muscles stiff from the cold? Was he alone, or was he sharing that doorway? How had he gotten there? When had he eaten last? Waking up always included a series of questions.

First question: _was he okay?_ There was some truth, some necessity, in looking out for number one. If he was injured, he had to address that before anything else. If he was fine, the question was easily dismissed. This time, his answer was a muddled _kind of?_ Because he felt fine, but he was almost positive that it was due to not being able to feel anything at all. Considering that his last clear memory was of getting filleted, that was probably a good thing. Once in a while, you just had to give up and let yourself enjoy being doped up. Jason didn't even try to fight the hold of the drugs. They were hefty ones. 

Second question: _where was he?_ If he'd answered _yes_ to the first question, he could handle what was around him. The only time question one and two flipped was when he woke up in extreme situations, like waking up to find everything around him on fire, or something equally distressing. This time, he knew where he was immediately: the recovery room in Leslie Thompson's clinic. 

Gotham. He was back in Gotham. He was okay (and drugged), in Leslie's clinic, in Gotham. He was home. 

The final question, of course, was: _was he alone?_

His head swam, honey-thick with painkillers, so it took real effort to focus on the shapes around him. An EKG machine translated his heartbeat to soft beeps. Jason blinked, and shit, even _that_ took effort. 

The answer to question number three was _no._ Bruce was sitting in an uncomfortable, straight-backed chair to his right. He had a white dress shirt on, cuffs unbuttoned and rolled to his elbows. 

The EKG machine squealed with the sudden spike in his pulse. Damn. Jason had to wonder if he really was awake after all. 

"Good morning," Bruce said, since the traitorous machinery he was hooked up to had alerted him. He sounded tired. Looked it, too. 

"Mornin'," Jason mumbled thickly, scrunching his nose at the gravelly sound of his own voice. Sounded like he'd been gargling glass, basically. 

"We need to talk."

 _Super._

"Gonna be honest with you here, Da…Br…man. M' kinda…" he slurred, wiggling his fingers. Whoa. There was an IV in his hand. When the fuck had _that_ gotten there? "… _woooo_ …right now." 

Jason lifted his hand to rub his eyes, but he missed his face entirely. His arm flopped uselessly on the pillow beside his head, and he growled at it. Stupid motor skills. Abandoning him in his time of need. He managed to find his eyes on the second try.

Bruce sighed, but it wasn't one of his Disappointed in You sighs---not even one of his I Really Don't Have Time for This Shit sighs. There was a fondness to it. But hey, he was drugged to the point of exploring all the interesting nooks in his molars with his tongue, so maybe he was imagining it. 

"Then just listen, Jason." 

He found his thumb---he still had two!---giving him a thumb's-up with it. 

"C'n do." 

Bruce looked away, gazing distantly out the window. The early morning light streaming in through the gaps in the blinds cast thin, bright stripes across his face and chest. He looked kind of picturesque. No, Jason thought, mentally amending himself, he wasn't the kind of man people painted. He was too solid for that. Bruce Wayne looked like he was made of more marble than flesh just on his own. 

"I know about the Pit," he said, after a weighty moment. "I know that you…came back to us through immersion in the Lazarus Pit." 

"Oh." 

Jason suddenly found the ceiling immensely interesting. He counted tiles, waiting for Bruce to elaborate on that little bomb. He lost count four times---from there, it just turned into keeping count of how many times he could lose count. Then he lost count of that. 

Leslie had given him damn fine drugs, bless her. 

Finally, Bruce stood, dragging his chair closer to the bed before sitting back down. 

"It's ironic." Bruce clasped his hands between his knees, head bowed. He closed his eyes. The lines in his face---new lines, lines Jason didn't remember being there---bothered him. "It's ironic, because when I was still grieving, I…considered it myself. If I hadn't been so concerned about the brain damage you'd been subject to premortem, I would have done it. I would have taken the risk, and put you in the Lazarus Pit. I would have done _anything_ to save your life."

It wasn't fair. It was a dick move, waiting until he was doped up to his eyeballs to have a heart-to-heart. And not a Dick move. Dick didn't need a sedated audience to say what was on his mind.

"Thass'nice." 

Jason blinked sluggishly. His head was hovering between clouds eight and nine, so putting his thoughts in order wasn't working out so well for him. Bruce was a dick. A great big bag of dicks worthy of being a marble statue. Or maybe just a statue made of dicks. 

Why couldn't they have had this conversation when he was sober? 

Bruce reached out, resting his hand on his taped-and-IV'd arm. 

"Whatever has happened, whatever Talia put you through…you're still my partner. My soldier." He paused. "My son. Nothing changes that, Jason. _Nothing."_

Jason licked his dry lips. 

"Have you figured out why I ordered your house arrest?" Bruce asked, drawing his gaze and holding it.

"'Cause you think I'm crazy." 

Bruce didn't say anything, but it was the kind of silence that held a rebuke. Jason sighed, closing his eyes. 

"'Cause Dickie's gonna get himself killed. 'N he needs a babysitter. We're sitting each other."

He'd had his lightbulb moment, his glowing epiphany, just before he went after Nightwing. He'd been toying with the question for days, wondering how the hell Bruce could _ignore_ what Dick was doing to himself. Daddy Bat knew Dick better than anyone. Thirty-odd miles wasn't enough distance to keep his prying eyes away, so Jason hadn't believed for a moment that he just didn't _know_ that Dick was running himself into the ground. But what could he do? If he tried to tell him that he couldn't do it all alone, Dick would fight harder---and fall harder. If he tried to help him, he'd think that was his way of telling him that he didn't think he was good enough to hack it. Dick had appointed himself as Blüdhaven's savior, and it was turning him into a martyr. Bruce's hands were tied, so leaving Jason with Dick had literally been two birds with one stone: Dick would monitor Jay for signs of the cuckoo crazies, and Jason would make sure Dick didn't end up an avian smear. 

But he'd had to figure that out on his own. He'd had to believe that Bruce trusted him enough to have an ulterior motive for placing him with Dick. He'd had to do the homework, reading up on all of the particular monsters living in the 'Haven and realizing that Nightwing couldn't handle it all himself. Jason wanted to think that he'd changed too much to still be predictable, but Bruce had known what he would do. That's what the Batman did---he set up these elaborate tests, these pass-fail scenarios that you never knew existed, much less knew how to win, unless you failed. 

But he'd passed. He'd gotten himself kind of fucked up in the process, but he'd passed. 

Just like old times.

"Yes," Bruce said, not moving his hand away. The warm weight of it made Jason's eyes itch. Or maybe that was the opiates. He was going to go with it being the opiates. "And I need you to continue doing this for me." 

"I do this, I'm a good soldier again," he rasped, and hated that the junk he was hooked up to broadcasted how the idea made his heartbeat gallop. He could keep his mumbles even and calm, but he couldn't silence that. "That's how it works, yeah?" 

"You never stopped being a good soldier," Bruce said, his voice unshakably certain. His sun-striped profile slid around in Jason's vision, blurred by his itching eyes. "Now rest. You need it." 

Jason nodded, though it made him feel like a weird kind of bobbleheaded doll. He let himself sink into the mattress, into the painkillers, and the uncomplicated comfort of his partner-father's hand on his arm. Business wasn't finished between them---not by a long shot. It might never be. But for the moment, he'd proven that he was good, and he could enjoy the warmth of the threshold of the fold. 

And it felt pretty damn good.


	6. Chapter 6

It was a full week before Jason was released. There was always someone with him during visiting hours, and someone watching his room overnight. Bruce wouldn't take any further chances, so they all assumed surveillance shifts---Bruce, Dick, Alfred, Cassandra, and even Tim (though Jason had thrown Tim out of his room four times, for no reason other than opiates made him extremely cranky and he hadn't felt like looking at his face. The first two times, Tim had gotten upset. The third, he'd just sat in the hallway outside his door and caught up on his homework. The fourth time, he'd come back with his girlfriend, Stephanie. She thoroughly chewed Jason out, then charmed the hell out of him, once again proving that Tim was a smart kid).

Dick had promised himself that he'd finish out his last week with the BPD, so he did just that. He worked his day shift, drove to Gotham, spent a few hours with Jason, drove back to Blüdhaven, ran a short patrol, then rinsed and repeated. He hadn't thought that a day would come where he'd look forward to leaving the force, but by the time the week was through, he was ready to excise _something_ from his schedule. 

Dick had worried that Jason would choose to stay at the manor, since Alfred would be much better equipped to help him through his recovery process. When he'd asked, he'd just scoffed and said that hanging around the manor all day would bore him to death, and nobody wanted him to die a second time. 

And so, when he was deemed fit enough to return to the rest of the world, Dick drove him back to the 'Haven. Jason made a beeline for the bed as soon as they walked through the door, and Dick didn’t stop him---even when he flopped down fully clothed, boots dangling unceremoniously off over the side. Somehow, he managed to flatten out and take up two-thirds of the king-sized bed. Dick just grinned crookedly, tiredly, pulling his shirt off over his head. It created a static halo out of his shaggy hair, which took some pawing-at to re-tame. 

“Whatever it is they gave me, I like it,” Jason mumbled, mostly into the bedcover. “Can't feel my face. Haven't felt my face for a week. This shit's _greeeeaaaat.”_

Dick kicked off his shoes, leaning over to pluck at the laces to Jason's. He didn’t move. He was unspeakably drained, and obviously didn’t care if he had to be manually undressed for bed. 

“Pants off, Little Wing. Spooning with all that denim will chafe my delicate skin.” 

Jason rolled over and harrumphed, and Dick almost---almost---felt bad for making him move, but seriously? Even if he couldn't feel his face, he wouldn't sleep well when he was still in his jeans. As much fun as he'd have trying to wrestle him out of his clothes when he was two hundred pounds of dead weight, it'd be easier on them both if he helped the process along. 

Dick was mindful of his bandages, avoiding putting any pressure on his still-swollen abdomen as he helped him undress. The poor guy hadn't even been able to get his fly buttoned, Dick realized with a sigh. All at once, it really did feel like he was taking care of a younger sibling. As doped up and injured as he was, Jason was as close to being helpless as he'd ever seen him. Jason obediently raised his hips to help him get his pants down past his thighs. He moved with stiff slowness---Dick could see the knots of tension in his shoulders, could feel them every time Jay tried to take a deep breath---and then curled up underneath the covers. It took only a couple minutes for his face to relax, but Dick could almost feel the ache roll off of him. He tried to hide how thrashed he was, but he'd skated perilously close to death's door yet again. 

Jason Todd was the kid who prank rang death's doorbell and then ran away cackling. Sometimes, he made it off of death's lawn. Sometimes, he didn't. 

Dick's throat squeezed shut at the thought, as irrational as it was. He grabbed him and dragged him closer. His fingers dug protectively into the hard flesh of his biceps, Jason's head tucked under his chin and his cheek pressed against his chest. His warm breath fanning against his throat made that knot inside him loosen, but only a little. 

“We gonna mess around?” Jason murmured, shifting against him until he was comfortable. 

“Are you kidding? You can't even keep your eyes open.” 

"C’n too," he slurred, his eyes still closed. "Saved the day, Big Bird. That should’ve earned me a handjob. Heroes get handies. 'S the law, Officer." 

"We're not having this argument," Dick said, mostly because he couldn’t bear to say much else. Yes, Jason had saved the day, but he'd almost died in the process. He didn't want to even touch that thought. “You’ve got a gut full of staples. No sex. Doctor's orders.” 

He hiked a leg up over Jason's hip, fitting himself in around him as best as he could. He needed to feel that he was there, that he was okay, that he wasn’t going to leave him because he couldn’t deal with that, not now, and possibly not ever again. Maybe the paranoia would fade over time, but it was still so new. He couldn't believe that he was really alive, so he was terrified of waking up to find that he wasn't. 

Dick's fingers found the waistband of Jason's boxers and they curled in, flush against the angle of his hip. There wasn’t anything sexual about it---just physical contact, skin on skin warmth, assurance that he was grounded and he wasn’t planning to do anything but sleep next to him and heal.

“You’d better wake me up with painkillers, a sandwich, and a handjob,” Jason said, yawning. “Or I’m gonna regret giving up my spleen for you, old chum.” 

"You'll get two out of three," Dick told him as he tucked them both in. "And in the words of the bard, two out of three ain't bad." 

 

*

 

Jason was snoring when Dick woke up the next morning. Actually _snoring._ He'd never slept deeply enough to do that before, and even though it'd startled him awake---for a horrible fraction of a second, he'd thought he'd have to deal with someone breaking into the apartment with a chainsaw---it made Dick grin hugely. His little brother had grown into a bear of a man, and when he slept deeply, he sounded like it as much as he looked it. 

Dick slipped out of bed, closing the door behind him so that Jason would hopefully get a little more sleep. He fixed himself a bowl of cereal, then made a poor attempt at a grilled cheese sandwich for Jay. He had a unabashed love for greasy food, but Dick doubted that his stomach would tolerate it. Still, he'd promised that he'd wake him up with a sandwich, and he wasn't about to go back on his word. 

He thoroughly scorched the sandwich. He wasn't usually such a terrible cook---burning things seemed to be an all-new habit of his---but his attention was everywhere but focused on the stove. Thankfully, he hadn't replaced the smoke alarm from the morning of the pancake debacle, so he didn't have to worry about giving Jason a rude awakening. 

A part of him was positive that he wouldn't be able to hear the smoke alarm over his own snoring, though. Dick smirked to himself. He'd woken up feeling better than he had in a good two weeks. It was amazing what a good nights' sleep could do to a person's mood. 

After shoveling the semi-edible sandwich onto a plate, he took it back into the bedroom. Jason had rolled over onto his side, so he wasn't snoring anymore. Even on hefty painkillers, he was fairly cognizant of his surroundings. He'd woken up, at least a little. 

“How’re you feeling, champ?” Dick asked, trying not to grin. He'd kicked off the covers and ended up tangled in them, his hair standing on end from his tossing and turning. Jason looked worryingly like the Bride of Frankenstein. 

“Ngghn,” Jason groaned pathetically. 

“Thought so. I burned you a grilled cheese sandwich, if you think you can handle it.” 

Jason just groaned again, sounding absolutely tortured. What a ham. His discomfort was genuine, but Dick knew for fact that he was playing it up, since he had an audience. 

"I'm coming down from my happy drugs, I'm bloated as hell, I've got staples holding me together, and I'm missing internal organs. How d'you _think_ I'm feeling?" Jason scratched his cheek, face scrunching. "Aaaaand now I'm nauseous. Come over here. I don't think I've got it in me to projectile vomit, and I don't want to miss." 

Dick sat down next to him, helping him sit up a little and stuffing pillows in behind him. He could complain about him being a terrible nurse, but he honestly thought that he wasn't half bad. He liked taking care of people, and like it or not, Jason needed someone to take care of him. 

"We'll work back up to substantial foods. The nausea is probably from the narcotics, and you're due for another round of them. Want to try some chicken soup? You need to keep hydrated, but if you ralph, it'll be counterproductive." 

"I can take care of myself," Jason grouched, burying his face in the pillow.

They both knew that was complete bullshit, but Dick let him cling to whatever scraps of pride he had left.

Bats and birds were social animals. Neither of them had it in them to be true loners. 

 

*

 

Dick slipped in through the window after patrol, his mind pulled and teased into a saltwater taffy-like consistency. He'd been trying to find Tarantula, and he'd failed. That was new, and that was bad. He hadn't patrolled for four days solid after Jason came home from the hospital, because it had just felt way too risky to leave him all day and all night. Either Tarantula had lost interest in Nightwing, or she was onto the fact that he was onto her. He'd rattled more than a few branches, but nothing had dropped---leaving his efforts utterly fruitless. He wasn't sure if he'd been giving it less than his all, or if she'd been uncharacteristically elusive. Either way, Dick rolled into the apartment just as the sky was turning gray with predawn light, feeling like he'd wasted a substantial chunk of hours. Time, for him, was more precious than money by far. 

He kicked off his boots and tossed his gloves on the table, grumbling to himself. He went to the kitchen for the meal he hadn't quite settled on a name for---either his second post-midnight snack, or his pre-breakfast breakfast. Dick tried to find foods that he didn't have to work hard to eat, calorie-dense and effort-light. He was usually partially asleep when he had this meal, so things that he had to chew---or could choke on---were avoided. 

Tonight, he went for a large bowl of chocolate pudding, grabbing a spoon and forgoing a smaller bowl. Serving sizes were for chumps who hadn't spent half the night jumping from rooftops. Dick ate until his stomach stopped gnawing at him, then dropped into bed for a few hours of sleep before his alarm went off. He took a couple heaping mouthfuls of pudding, closing the fridge door with his hip and venturing back into the 301B bedroom. 

Jason's meds seemed to be holding out, since the bedroom was dark and quiet. Dick happily shoveled spoonfuls of pudding in his mouth, silently navigating the messy bedroom floor.

He felt guilty about drugging Jason up before he went to work or out on patrol, but he knew that he was doing it for his own good. Keeping Jason flat on his back and docile for as long as he'd allow it was the key to getting him healed up properly. He was terrible about ignoring all of the natural warning signs from his body, denying pain if it meant doing what he wanted to do.

Timing Jason's medication doses for right before he left in the morning and evening (and erring to the generous side when he dispensed it) was far from being the unkind option. He was usually still asleep when he dropped by during lunch, the television on and turned to something mindlessly inane. Dick took to kicking off his shoes and eating lunch in bed, waking Jason up for the soup and another dose of painkillers before he went back to work. 

He just wanted to do things right this time. To take care of him. To make sure that Jason knew that he _wanted_ to take care of him, and that he was really there for him. Dick knew that he'd made more than a few mistakes with Jason, and so he was treating this as a second chance to be a good brother to him. A good friend. A good…whatever it was that he was to him, now. 

And Dick enjoyed it. It was difficult not to. He didn't like seeing Jason in pain, but he was sleeping well for once. He ate and sassed him more daily, so he was definitely on his way toward healing. 

But he didn't fight him. When Dick wanted to be close to him, and to talk, and to just relax for a few damn minutes, he could. There was something comforting about watching him sleep and knowing that he wouldn't unexpectedly wake up screaming. 

Dick set the bowl on the edge of the bed, reaching back and tugging down his zipper. For most people, taking off the Nightwing suit would be a two-person job. Dick was bendy, though---bordering on being a contortionist. It was one of the main reasons that Bruce allowed him to take on the Robin identity. He had an unfair advantage when it came to being tied up by bad guys. Dick peeled off his uniform, crawling in beside Jason and settling in with the bowl of pudding on his stomach. 

But then, he felt damp warmth soaking through his boxers. He scooted over quickly, face heating in secondhand embarrassment for poor Jay. 

The moment he turned on the bedside lamp, his embarrassment ratcheted up into panic. The mattress was stained by a lurid red bloom. Dick overturned his pudding in his haste to inspect what the hell Jason had done to himself. He was unconscious, his face slack and grayish. Jason had reopened his wound, and blood was seeping clear through his bandage and undershirt. 

Shit. He must have had another thrashing nightmare. If Dick had been there watching him, he would've stopped it before he ripped himself up. Jason hadn't lost a large amount of blood, but he wasn't anywhere near healthy. He peeled back his shirt to judge the damage he'd done to himself, biting the inside of his cheek. His assailant had opened up a jagged stripe on his left side, yet another scar to add to his crosshatched collection. The doctor's incision looked so weirdly neat by comparison. 

When Dick touched his skin, Jason shivered reflexively. He was burning up, radiating heat. He'd been running a low-grade fever since his surgery, but that was to be expected. This was not. This was the kind of hotness that was dangerous---he didn't need to take his temperature to know that. If he couldn't control the bleeding and get his fever down, he'd have to take him to the emergency room of one of Blüdhaven's hospitals. Dick had been in those hospitals, and they were too understaffed and overcrowded to inspire great confidence in him. The worry twisted up his insides, banishing his own weariness. 

Jason groaned as he inspected him, eyelashes fluttering. His eyes opened, but they were too bright and glassy. He tracked Dick's movements sluggishly.

"You're bleeding through," Dick said, his voice low and patient. Calming. It trembled with his tiredness, but he couldn't help that. "Bad dream, Jaybird?"

In classic Bat-deflection, Jason didn't answer the question. He just kind of squinted at him like an unpleasant and oversized child, his eyes unfocused and his hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. Dick had only been gone for a couple of hours. How had he managed to get himself so screwed up? 

He took a deep breath. First order of business was to clean him up, then assess whether he'd need medical attention that Dick himself couldn't give him. 

"That was _my_ pudding," Jason said with a frown, looking at the overturned bowl. "You bastard." 

Caring for him would have been so much simpler if Jason was even just a fraction less cantankerous. But then again, he wouldn't be Jason if he was mild and easy to get along with. He'd be Tim. 

"You ruined the sheets. We're even," he called over his shoulder, trotting to the bathroom. He shook a couple of Tylenol caplets into his palm, along with Jason's next dose of medication and a thermometer; hopefully, the combo would get his fever and pain under control. He grabbed two washcloths with his free hand and soaked them under the faucet, wringing them out once before taking them back to the bed.

"Open wide, baby bird," Dick said, trying for levity. Jason did crack a smile, obediently kicking back his pills with a sip of water.

"Nngh," he huffed, face pinching with pain as Dick removed his soiled bandages and started sopping up the blood. "Damn. Leaking again." 

"You've got to stop doing that," Dick said, more of a sigh than a scold. His lungs fizzed with anxiety, a sour effervescence. 

"But then what'll you take care of?" When Dick didn't reply, too preoccupied with mopping up the mess on his stomach, Jason made a small, almost hurt noise. It wasn't a choked grunt of physical pain, though. It was something else. Something startling. "…I know, I know. I'm a pain in the ass. But I've always been a pain in the ass." 

God, he was a mess. Dick doubted that he would have babbled that aloud if his brain hadn't been soft boiled by fever, but he hated that his doubt existed at all. 

"Jay, no. Stop it. I don't mind this. I swear." He backed that up with as much surety as he could muster, looking him straight in the eye so that he knew he _meant it._ "I'm not tired of you. I won't _be_ tired of you. You're stuck with me. Got it?" 

Jason just shrugged. It turned into a wince halfway, since that pulled his already inflamed stomach. Dick carefully worked Jason's shirt off the rest of the way, disliking the way he'd started shivering. He couldn't rightly leave him in bed with bloody sheets and a comforter smeared with pudding, but he wasn't sure how mobile he'd be.

"Say ahh," Dick instructed, holding up the thermometer. Jason gave him a dirty look, further proving that yes, he reverted to being roughly four years old when he was sick and feverish. "Say ahh, or accept that you're not going to enjoy where I put this. Rectal readings _are_ more accurate." 

"That's not how you do dirty talk. See if I ever let you stick anything in my mouth or ass ever again," Jason muttered darkly. He opened his mouth for the thermometer, so Dick carefully tucked it under his tongue. 

Dick gathered up the stained washcloths, wringing them out in the bathroom sink until the water ran clear again. He got new bedding out of the hall closet, then started stripping the bed. As soon as he removed the blankets, Jason moaned, thermometer still clenched between his teeth, and curled into a miserable ball. Dick lightly touched his sweat-sticky back, feeling his muscles tremble. 

"I need you to get up. Just for a few seconds. I have to put down some fresh sheets---it'll only take a minute. Think you can handle it?" 

He nodded. That was a challenge, and even with a soaring fever, Jason Todd didn't back down from any kind of challenge. He swatted Dick's hand away when he tried to help him up, and even though it took him a bit, he managed to work his way to his feet. He wavered dizzily, but he didn't fall. Dick switched out the bedding as quickly as possible, probably setting a record that would have made Alfred glow with pride. His spare comforter was a throwback from his college days, worn out and patched in two places, but it'd work. It was clean, and that was a major improvement. 

Taking the thermometer out of his mouth, he frowned. 104°. If it got _any_ higher, he'd have to take him to the hospital. Dick wasn't the praying type, but he threw out a haphazard plea that the medication would bring his fever down. 

"You doing okay?" 

"Not gonna swoon," Jason insisted, but he graciously allowed Dick to guide him back into bed. He rolled him onto his back, retrieving the washrags for one last wipe-down before he slapped some new bandages on him. 

"You seemed to be sleeping easier for a while," Dick said as he worked. "What changed?" 

"I started sleeping," Jason mumbled, barely audible. He looked at the ceiling instead of at him. 

Dick stopped, frowning at him. "What?" 

"You needed to sleep. I get nightmares on the fucking regular. You wouldn't let me sleep in the other room, and I didn't want to bust your face again."

Normally, he would've been able to school his tone and expression. But as muddled as he was, Jason loudly projected his guilt. It made him look so _miserable._

"So you kept yourself awake? For _days?"_

It figured, really. If Jason hadn't been quite so sick, Dick would have laughed at the absurdity of it all. He tried to put up a front as a hardened man, but Jay cared about people. That part of him was what had made him Robin. It hadn't been beaten out of him or broken, and it made Dick's chest ache whenever he caught glimpses of it. He hid it like a weakness, but in Dick's opinion, it was one of the greatest strengths a vigilante could have. Vengeance and rage ran hot, but they burned out quickly. Love was what kept them venturing out into the night again and again. 

"Don't wanna talk about this," Jason said crabbily, twisting away from him. "I'm a tragic hero with no spleen. Leave me alone."

"Jay." Dick switched out for his clean rag, leaning in and wiping down his sweaty face. Judging from the way his knit brow started smoothing out, the cool washcloth felt good. "I really think that if you let me help you work through them, the nightmares will die down. Ignoring them and punishing yourself won't accomplish anything." 

"And what? I beat the shit out of you until they stop?" 

"Right now, you're not capable of much more than love taps," Dick said cheekily. When he just glared at him, jaw set stubbornly, he added, "I've taken harder hits for less noble reasons. Don't worry about me." 

"Not worried 'bout you. Worried 'bout your stupid face. Officer Nightwing…" Jason made a sluggish gesture at him, fingers loose. "Can't be Officer Nightwing." 

The drugs were kicking in. Good. He'd rest fairly peacefully when he was fully doped up again. Hopefully, his fever would break and he'd get some rest. Dick had his fingers crossed that he wouldn't have to pack him up for an early-morning trip to the ER. He'd stay awake until his fever broke. That probably meant going to work on no sleep, but so be it. He had a little bird to care for, and that took priority. 

"We don't have to worry about people putting two and two together," Dick said, as cheerfully as possible. Tomorrow was his last day, and he didn't want to think about it. He'd been doing such a good job of ignoring the inevitable. "Officer Grayson is retiring." 

"What?" 

"Don't worry about it. I only joined the force in order to fight the corruption head-on. And I did. My mission was successful, so now I don't need Officer Grayson anymore." 

Jason continued to glare at him blearily. Dick would have assumed that, as greedy for attention as he was, he'd be wholly on board with him being around for a few more hours a day. 

_"Bullshit,",_ Jason swore emphatically. "'S it me, or Bruce?" 

Sadly, Dick was fluent enough in Massively Medicated Mumbling to understand what he was trying to say. He was asking if the decision was one that he'd made because he'd _wanted_ to be around more, or if the decision had been made for him. He sighed. 

"Little of column A, little of column B," Dick admitted, cleaning the last traces of blood off his hands and tossing the rag into the heaping pile of dirty linens. "Go to sleep. Or I'll skip your next dose of painkillers, and you'll be able to feel your face again. You don't want that, do you?" 

He squinted at him suspiciously. "You wouldn't." 

"Try me." 

"Worst. Nurse. Ever," Jason said adamantly. 

"'Nighty-night, Little Wing," Dick said, brushing back his sweaty hair. He combed his fingers through the white stripe. He'd avoided it entirely at first, since it'd marked Jason as visibly different from the boy he'd dubbed Little Wing all those years ago, but he was starting to accept it as just being a part of who Jason was now. He couldn't pick and choose what parts of Jason he wanted to acknowledge. 

Dick thought that he had drifted off again, but then the corner of his mouth twitched with a smirk. 

"…since you're giving up the cop stuff," Jason said, squinting open one gray-blue eye. "Can I get you in a nurse getup? It'll help me heal. I swear."

 _"Go to sleep."_

Jason heaved one last put-upon sigh, stretching out his arm so that the back of his hand curled against Dick's thigh. 

Jason's fever lowered to a safer level around six, which gave Dick all of forty-five minutes of sleep before he had to show up at the police station. He took a shower so frigid, he was sure that his testes would never trust the temperature of the outside world ever again. Dick choked down four poptarts and a sludge-thick cup of coffee while he waited for stoplights to change. That breakfast of champions churned with acid as soon as he made it through the door, since he didn't even make it to the locker room before Gannon redirected him toward Amy's office. 

And while Dick had wanted to talk to her eventually, he hadn't expected her to beat him to the verbal punch. He pasted on an Officer Grayson smile---high-watt and determined, not the smile of a physically and mentally exhausted vigilante who was running on sugar, caffeine, and less than an hour of sleep. Dick was very, very good at that smile. 

A flicker of maternal worry chased over Amy's features when he walked into her office and closed the door behind him. It was always interesting to watch the play of various layers of Amy. There was Amy the cop, Amy the Captain, Amy the wife, and Amy the mother. They all had a lot in common, but sometimes, the various Amys were at odds with each other. He saw that now, in the way that the worry was elbowed out by his tough-as-nails captain. 

"You look like crap, Grayson," she said, crossing her arms over her chest and leaning back in her chair. 

"Rough night," Dick said apologetically, flexing the bill of his hat between his hands. 

"You've had a lot of those lately." 

"I'm…going through some things. Some…" Dick sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. He could feel a knot twisting up between his shoulders. Too much stress, not enough sleep. Quite literally the story of his life. "There was a near-death in my family." 

"Is that your cover?" Amy asked, cool and clipped. 

Where the hell had _that_ come from? 

"That's the truth," Dick said, his eyes widening. "It's my brother. He was stabbed during a mugging attempt. He just got out of the hospital a few days ago, and I've been taking care of him, and---" 

"Let me repeat myself," his captain interrupted, standing and leaning over her desk. "Is that your cover?" 

Dick slipped his cell out of his pocket, turning it on speakerphone. Jason answered the apartment line on the fourth ring. 

"Aren't you s'posed to be at work?" Jason's voice was groggy, audible even on the tinny speaker. 

"I am at work. Just wanted to check in and see how you're feeling." 

"M'fine. Not hallucinating and shit, if that's what you mean. Been sipping my juice and watching Sesame Street like a good boy. Bored out of my fucking skull. I might hack your cable later, just for kicks."

"Don't even try it," Dick said, rolling his eyes. "Keep hydrated, sleep, and don't mess with your sutures--- _or_ the electronics. I'll see you at lunch."

Dick didn't enjoy the guilt that welled up in Amy's eyes. Maybe someone else would have liked proving their innocence so absolutely, but Dick wasn't like that. When he hung up, she sighed. Some, but not all, of the tension had drained out of her shoulders. 

"I wish I didn't have to do this, Dick. You're good---the best rookie I've ever seen. _Too_ good. That's why I have to ask you to turn in your badge." 

Dick felt like he'd been dunked in snowmelt. For a moment, his lungs froze. 

_"What?"_

"I know," Amy said, enunciating carefully. "I know who you are, I know you've been lying, and you've put me in an enormously compromising position as a result." 

"Amy, I know that I---but can't we---can't we talk about---" 

He fumbled for words, but she cut him off with a single raised hand. 

"I can't willfully employ a man who takes the law into his own hands." 

Oh. She _knew._ He'd gotten too sloppy, and she'd figured it out. She could unravel it---his life, Bruce's life, their entire network---with a few swift tugs. 

More failure. Dick felt almost lightheaded. 

"I need your badge," Amy continued, but it was Amy the Mother, not Amy the Captain. "I can't protect you, but I can say that we never had this conversation." 

"I came here to help you---to set things right," Dick heard himself say, almost from a distance. "I was going to turn in my badge. My brother…all that is real." He carefully unpinned his badge and laid it on her desk. "I just didn't want it to end like this."

"You can't have it both ways," she said, surprisingly gently. "I hope your brother recovers soon. And thank you, Dick. I wish this wasn't the way it had to be." 

Dick drove back in a daze. He didn't remember what he said to Gannon on his way out, or even making his way back to the apartment. 

Jason was still in bed, which was good. Dick didn't want to break out the restraints every time he left him, but if Jason kept flailing and bleeding when he slept alone, he'd do what had to be done. Jason seemed intent on being the worst patient possible, and for the most part, he was succeeding. He was taking the day off, though---instead of pushing his limits like an idiot, he was in bed with a gallon of Neapolitan ice cream and Dick's laptop. His eyes were clear and focused when he looked up at him, so he wasn't feverish. That was a relief. Jason seemed much younger when he was typing with a spoon hanging out of his mouth.

"I thought I told you not to mess with the electronics," Dick said as he shed his uniform and crawled into bed with him. It was warm under the covers, and he could almost ignore the knot in his chest. It was too sluggish to be panic, too weary to be rage, but it was prickly and tight nonetheless. 

"Don't know. I wasn't listening," Jason said, scooping another spoonful of ice cream and offering it to him. Dick ate it, then took the spoon from him and kept going. Ice cream wasn't a cure-all, but it did help. "You quit?" 

"Kinda." 

"Lemme guess. You don't want to talk about it." 

"Nope." Dick ate another spoonful, then fed one to Jason when he leaned over and opened his mouth expectantly. He was playing some kind of game on the laptop. Dick didn't really have the attention span for video games, so he'd never gotten into them. Tim loved them, though. It was one of the few things that he and Jason had been able to agree upon. There was some kind of metal unicorn running across a candy-color background, streaming rainbows while a sugarpop song played. "What's that?" 

"Robot Unicorn Attack," Jason said, drumming the space key with his thumb. "I'm contractually obligated to destroy Timmy's high score." 

That was a form of getting along, wasn't it? Dick was too tired to scold him in the proper ways of big brothering. 

"You look like you need a nap, Dickie." 

"No," Dick said, already thinking of the calls that he'd have to make. Bruce wasn't going to be happy about Amy. If he told him. He'd have to tell him. Right? "I---" 

Jason's unicorn hit a crystalline blockade and exploded. He swore at length. 

"If you don't lay down and take a fucking nap, I'll kick your ass," he threatened, starting his game over. His unicorn whinnied, and the song looped back to the start. 

"You'll rip yourself up again," Dick cautioned, frowning. 

"Exactly. I'll bleed everywhere, and it'll be all your fault. Your crippling guilt will knock you out, so either way, you lose." 

When Dick tried to scrounge up another possible argument, Jason pushed his face into the pillow with his free hand, still tapping keys with his other. 

"Fine," he groused, swatting his hand away. "Wake me up in an hour." 

"Not a chance in hell," Jason promised sweetly, and stole the spoon and ice cream from him. "Get your beauty rest, princess."

 

*

 

"So, I think I should get a job," Jason announced a couple of days after Dick's dismissal. They'd been working on finishing up the reorganization and digitalization of Dick's rogues' files, so Dick had been too preoccupied with mincing around his deep dislike of his rogues to see the conversation coming. Not that Jason had really led up to it; in all things, Jason hit fast, hit hard, and hit with no warning whatsoever. 

"Because I lost mine?" Dick asked archly, setting down the sheaf of folders he'd been alphabetizing. 

"No, 'cause it's a good way to make contacts in town. You've got a handful already, but I don't have any," Jason said, drumming his palm against his stomach. "Besides, I can't even do _sit-ups_ for three months. I need something to occupy my time that doesn't include unicorns and files." 

That was true. Jason was healing, but no matter how quickly his natural healing process was, he was still human. It would be months before he was back to fighting fit. He'd probably push his way back into work way before then, but a civilian job might occupy him for long enough to give his body a break. 

"What kind of job are you thinking of?" 

"Maybe at a shop. You know I'm an ace with anything that gets a lazy biped from point A to point B." 

In Blüdhaven, mechanics and chop shops were kissing cousins. "Nope." 

"Bartender?" 

Jason had the personality and flair to make a great bartender, but his ears were too sharp. He wouldn't be able to help himself from getting involved if he heard something interesting. Dick was positive of that, because bartending was the first job he'd had when he'd moved to the 'Haven. He'd worked in a cop bar, and just seeing the corruption from the other side of the bar had spurred him into action. Jason was too much like him---but not enough like him to work up instead of working down. 

"No," Dick said emphatically. "I tried that, and it was lousy. Nobody tips around here." 

"Looks like my only choice is to start stripping. Got a banana hammock I can borrow?" Jason laughed, slapping his knee, then gestured at him. "What am I even saying? You’re Dick Grayson. Of course you’ve got a spare banana hammock hanging around. Bruce'll be so proud of me finally making an honest living." 

Dick heaved a sigh, not rising to the bait. "We'll think of something." 

Something good. Something safe. Something that would keep Jason out of trouble, because with everything else he was juggling, he couldn't handle the weight of the kind of trouble Jason's dangerous magnetism attracted.

Dick leaned over, brushing the backs of his knuckles over his chin. 

"You're getting really scruffy," he pointed out, running his fingers over the rasp of his whiskers. It was so odd to remember that this man was the little Robin that'd been so proud of his fresh new peach fuzz. "Not exactly interview-ready." 

"Yeah, I know. Haven’t felt like shaving. Or moving." 

"I like it," Dick said, with feeling. 

"Yeah?" 

"Yeah." 

Jason smirked. He looked kind of happy, and Dick liked that. 

"You like it now," Jason drawled, as if he had to cover up the fact that his compliment had pleased him. "But give me another three or four days. I'll have a lumberjack beard by then. Small woodland creatures will get lost in it. Maybe your keys, too. My facial hair is unpredictable." 

"Want me to shave it for you? You're too shaky to do it yourself," Dick said, grinning. "I've seen your hack jobs on your good days. You've already had one blood transfusion this month, and I think that's more than enough." 

Jason was impatient. He didn't waste time with things that he considered a waste of time, and so Dick had to bite his tongue every time he saw him freshly-shaved. He'd probably have a cleaner shave if he did it with a knife, since he all but mauled his face with a disposable razor. He usually emerged from the bathroom with a peppering of toilet paper dabs stuck to all of his bleeding nicks, and looked so thunderous that Dick knew better than to ever tease him about it. 

Dick had a feeling that nobody had taught him _how_ to shave. Jason would loudly deny him if he tried to imply that he _needed_ to be taught, so Dick hoped that he would learn from example. 

"Sure," Jason said, getting up and lumber-shuffling to the bathroom. He still moved with some residual stiffness, but he didn't wince as he sat down on the closed toilet lid. Dick followed him in, briskly preparing the shaving accouterments. 

"You use a straight razor?" Jason asked, watching him with clear interest. "My, aren't you just a dandy." 

"It's an antique," Dick said, mixing the shaving soap into a lather in a mug. "A Grayson family heirloom. It's been passed down to the eldest son since my great-grandfather bought it."

Jason didn't have any smart remarks to say to that. He looked almost longing, as if he was wishing that he had some physical memento from his own father. Dick wouldn't grind the point in any more, though he _was_ very grateful to have a reminder of his father built into his daily routine. He always thought of John Grayson whenever he shaved, dredging up soft-edged memories of breathing in his father's aftershave. He used the same kind of shaving cream, as well as he could remember the smell---eucalyptus and menthol. 

The smell of menthol had new associations for Dick, though. Eucalyptus and menthol memories were layered with the smell of menthol cigarettes, now. 

"Chin up, Little Wing," Dick instructed, and started spreading the lather on Jason's face. His movements were light and practiced, the same swipes of the bristle brush that Bruce himself had taught him. The shaving supplies had been his father's, but John had died before he could pass on the particularities of straight razor shaving to him. It was Bruce who had taught him to shave, one of the many moments in Dick's life where he hadn't been able to call Bruce anything _but_ his father. He thought of him every time he shaved, too. 

Jason sat very still as he shaved him, utterly trusting. Dick was careful in his strokes, tilting his head at better angles as he worked. He shaved him twice, cleaned him off, then let him apply the aftershave himself. 

"There we go," Dick hummed appreciatively, tilting trailing the back of his hand over the curve of Jason's cheek. "Smooth as a baby's behind. Much better."

Jason turned into his hand, kissing his knuckles. 

And then he got on his knees. Even though there was only really one thing that he could have in mind when he sunk to that level, Dick still gaped at him stupidly. 

"You're not supposed to---" 

"Have sex. I know. You've told me like ten times already," Jason said, looking up at him through the fringe of his lashes. "And yeah, my stomach's all stitched up, but my mouth isn't. So lemme do this." 

Dick blinked confusedly. They were both physical people, so they hadn't let up on the contact and flirtation, but Dick had stuck to the doctor's orders. No sex for six weeks. Considering how much sex they'd had since Jason started staying with him, that was a tall order, but they'd both been good. It hadn't been a full three weeks since his surgery, so he was hesitant to let Jason even do this much. It wasn't like he'd be able to comfortably reciprocate. 

"You _want_ to---" 

"Yeah, you've earned one," Jason said shortly, unzipping his fly. "So shut up already." 

Jason’s warm breath hovered down past Dick’s navel, following the trail of dark hair that led from belly to cock. Dick’s stomach clenched, his breath hitching as Jason kissed his stomach with a hint of teeth. He could feel sweat gathering at the small of his back, sticky and slightly uncomfortable, but he couldn’t move away. When his suddenly large little brother-bird hunkered down low and took his time with playful exploration, everything else dimmed down as unimportant. 

Jason rolled down his boxers with a snap of elastic, already happily sucking new bruises into old ones. He’d long since found and exploited all of Dick’s particular sensitive spots. He made a point of not leaving bruises where anyone else could see them---out of respect for former golden boy rookie Officer Grayson---but he still made a point of leaving bruises. 

He held a hand over Dick’s mouth, instructing, “Lick,” which he did without thinking. Jason wrapped his hand, moist with a stripe of Dick’s own saliva, around his already half-hard cock. Dick sucked in his breath through his teeth, bucking almost helplessly into Jason’s loose fist. God, his hands had gotten big. _How_ had his hands gotten that big? 

But then Jason traced the curve of his erection with the flat of his tongue, and he sort of forgot about that meandering train of thought. Dick liked oral---giving, receiving, whichever---but Jason took it to an all new level.

To the point that it worried Dick. He'd had his fair share of oral---okay, maybe even a little bit more than his fair share---but Jason gave the best head he'd ever had. It didn't make sense. He'd been so clumsy with simple kisses, but his mouth turned clever when he had it stretched around a cock. The backwardness was telling. Dick knew that suggesting _anything_ would explode into a fight, because he clearly wasn't okay with talking about it. 

But Jason liked blowing him, and was kind of shameless about it, so he wouldn't take it off the table just because he was scared of the dark things lurking in Jay's past. Instead, he let him control what did and didn't happen between them. Dick never pushed him, never asked for head, but it was hard to put up a fight whenever Jason popped open his fly of his own volition and nipped just below his bellybutton. 

Jason caught just enough skin between his teeth to tug, a startling little pinch that made Dick twitch. He took his time, teasing with feather-light presses of his lips and huffed little laughs until Dick couldn’t keep himself from squirming and _needing_ his mouth around him. Jason needed to feel like he was in control, and god, sometimes Dick really needed to give up all control and trust that someone would take care of him. 

And maybe that was why their situation worked. Yeah, Jason was going stir-crazy, and yeah, Dick was perpetually exhausted, and yeah, they had a metric ton of baggage between them, but for all the friction, things were better. When he was with him, Jason was _Jason_ , and that was worth sleeping with one eye open and holding him down when his nightmares shredded his dreamscape. As long as he was willing to open up to him and follow Bruce’s basic rules, Dick trusted that they’d figure the rest out over time. 

Jason mouthed the line of his cock, inhaling deeply. His freshly-shaven cheek was silky-smooth, raising a prickle of goosebumps on Dick's arms as he brushed against his cock. When he finally sucked him down, it was a _blessing_. On one embarrassing occasion, he'd come before Jason had actually started blowing him. Brat that he was, he still teased Dick about it. Lasting power wasn’t usually a problem with him, but his partners rarely turned oral into a power thing. But Dick really liked it when it was a power thing, when Jason only blew him when he damn well felt like it, when he got off just on the sounds he could force out of him. 

And he was right. This wouldn't hurt him. It was difficult for them not to be physical on _some_ level. For being the chattiest ones in the family, they weren't very good at talking. Sex filled in the awkward gaps. He'd missed it for that reason alone. 

Dick tangled his fingers in the thick, wavy mess of Jason’s hair. He liked having his hair pulled, so he gave a murmur of approval around his mouthful of cock. The vibration turned into discernible notes---he was humming. Swallowing him down, he was humming something through his nose. 

It took him a few seconds to recognize it, but when he did, he groaned. And it wasn’t the good kind of moan, either. It was a _Little Wing, stop confusing my poor penis_ groan. 

‘Always’, by Erasure. That damn song from that damn game. 

_“Really,_ Jay?” Dick whined thinly, balling his fist against his mouth. Jason kept on humming, a throaty low vibration that sent all kinds of mixed signals through Dick. He was really starting to hate that song, but he really liked what he was doing with it. A _lot_.

If this conditioned him to get an erection every time he heard that song, he was in real trouble. 

Yeah, maybe Jason getting a day job was a good idea. 

 

*

 

Getting a job in the 'Haven was easier said than done. After the big earthquake, millions of Gothamites had fled to Blüdhaven, and many of them had opted to not return. This had energized Blüdhaven's economy, but the huge population boom had led to---unsurprisingly---more crime, and fewer jobs available. It didn't help that Jason didn't exist, strictly speaking, and had no references to list. For one reason or another, putting three years of vigilante sidekicking and two years of international terrorist training on his resumé just seemed like a bad idea. Dick suggested fabricating a former job at Wayne Enterprises, since Bruce would more than vouch for him, but Jason had shot that down. 

He didn't want to get a job just because Dad put in a good word for him. He didn't want to owe one more thing to his benevolent Bat. He couldn't. 

But that meant that Jason spent a lot of time waiting for callbacks that just weren't coming. Thankfully, he was feeling a lot more like himself daily, so he could distract himself with things other than internet games and terrible daytime television. Dick was back to patrolling at night and sleeping for most of the day, so he still had time to himself. Jason did small things, like fix shit that Dick hadn't had time to mend, finish up the new filing system, and cook. 

Jason liked to cook. Not because he liked cooking itself, but because he enjoyed how stupidly enthusiastic Dick got about food. He got a few recipes from Alfred---who thoroughly approved of him using his convalescing time to improve their diets; he worried about the swill Master Richard put into his body---and tried them out. 

When Alfred had told him that crab-stuffed mushrooms were Dick's favorite, he hadn't been prepared for exactly how much Dick loved them. Nothing could prepare Jason for that. He'd prepared the meal when Dick had been taking a late afternoon nap, and the smell alone had woken him up. 

Jason fucking loved how ridiculous Dick could be. He burst out laughing when he turned around to find Dick with his face pressed against the oven door, whispering, _"Are those what I think they are?"_

"It's dinner," Jason said offhandedly, grinning. "You hungry?" 

"You made stuffed mushrooms," Dick said, sounding somewhere between an accusation and an adulation. He pressed his nose to the glass and sighed dreamily. "I haven't had these in forever." 

"Move," Jason said, elbowing him. "I've gotta get them out before they burn." 

Dick obediently moved away, sitting on the kitchen counter. Jason pulled on the oven mitts and took the baking sheet lined with mushrooms out of the oven. He set it on a cooling rack, surveying his work. For a recipe he'd never tried before, it'd turned out pretty well. The mushrooms looked and sounded fancier than they were, though. It wasn't a difficult recipe. 

When they'd cooled a bit, Dick took a bite and actually _moaned_ , his eyes drifting shut. 

Jason had to take a gulp of wine---one of the ingredients in the meal, and an overall cooking aid---because his mouth had gone very dry. 

"Where did you learn to cook like this?" Dick demanded through a mouthful, finishing the mushroom in two large bites. "And why have you been holding out on me? This is _so good."_

He didn't have the heart to tell him that he'd gleaned most of his cooking tips from the man who'd taught him to work with toxins. It didn't seem appropriate, considering that Dick was happily wolfing down his dinner and talk of poison usually killed a reasonable person's appetite. 

"Alfred," he said instead, shrugging. It wasn't totally untrue. "I spent a lot of time in the kitchen." 

"God, I love you." 

Jason couldn't pretend that he hadn't heard him. He froze, and he tried to make his thoughts do the same. He didn't want to read into that, didn't want to decide how that little slip-up made him feel, but that was all he could think of. 

Dick must have seen him lock up, because he rested his hand on his shoulder, thumb lightly stroking the side of his neck. 

"I mean it, Jay. I do." 

Fucking Grayson. He wouldn't let him wiggle out of it. He wouldn't leave anything up to interpretation. He'd made sure he _knew_. 

"Okay," Jason said thickly, nodding. "'Kay." 

They ate dinner without even touching the edges of the subject again, sharing the bottle of wine between them. Jason embroidered around the elephant in the room with jokes about what a shitty cop Dick was, since he was providing alcohol to a minor. He'd laughed, face flushed with the good wine, and claimed that the rules were a little different for them. 

And that was true. They followed the law of the Bat, not the law of the land, though they hypocritically enforced the latter. It was one of the many aspects of the kingdom that Bruce had built that Jason had always questioned, but rarely challenged. Truth and justice had different meanings when applied to them, and most of the time, the Bat rewrote those meanings at will. 

Dick drank the lion's share of the bottle of wine, which was a rarity. Jason chalked it up to him needing a little emotional deadening, both positively and negatively. It loosened him up, so that he didn't have to care that he'd abandoned a day job that'd made him feel good, and that Jason hadn't been able to reciprocate his sloppy admission of love. 

But he did care about the stupid bastard, in his own way. If he didn't love Dick Grayson, he'd still have his spleen.

He'd taken a fall for him. A deliberate, calculated fall. As soon as Dick had suggested that they split up in the mall, he'd seen it as an opportunity to throw a metaphorical mattress under Nightwing before he splattered himself on the ground. Jason had realized something, and realized that he had a very limited window of time to act on that realization: Dick was in a nosedive, and he was very, very close to crashing. He needed something big to jar him from his current trajectory, and a stabbed little brother was just about the perfect thing to fit the bill.

As soon as he turned away, Jason manufactured an accident. 

Jason could have easily taken out his allotment of thugs. And he had, too. He'd picked off all of them, saving the biggest one for last. Had he been by himself, he wouldn't have worked up a sweat---but he'd been with Dick, and Dick didn't need to know what he was and wasn't capable of. In fact, he needed to feel like he was still needed. So when Jason had seen the knife coming, he'd calculated the strength of the thrust and the angle, then positioned himself to get stuck. 

Just enough to do some damage. Just enough to bleed like hell. Just enough to shake Dick up and force him to reorder his priorities. He wouldn't watch out for number one, but he'd watch out for number one if it meant protecting Robin number two. 

It'd been a sacrifice. A worthy one, as far as Jason was concerned. Had he figured out Bruce's mission objectives sooner, maybe he would've had more options to run through, but Big Brother Dickie had been in such a state of exhaustion, he'd fallen off a damn window ledge. Jason had known he'd have to do something drastic if he wanted him not to get himself killed. 

Bruce's nod of approval had confirmed that he'd done the right thing. Maybe not the thing that Bruce liked---trashing his spleen beyond repair hadn't been a part of his off-the-cuff plan---but the thing that he'd ultimately wanted. Jason had proven his loyalty and ensured that Dick had to keep himself alive. In all, a success. 

And so long as Dick never figured out that he'd more or less thrown himself on that knife, they'd be fine. Just peachy. He'd feel useful, and he wouldn't try going out like an idiot to prove a point. All in a day's work for Jason Todd: Splenectomized Soldier. 

He was a royal fuck up. _I'll die for you_ was his version of _I love you._

When he was sure that Dick was asleep, Jason slipped out of bed and locked himself in the bathroom. He opened the window, stuffed a towel under the door, and lit up a cigarette. Dick would flip out if he knew that he was still smoking, so he took at least the most rudimentary steps to hide his habit. Smoking when he couldn't sleep had been a ritual for most of his life. He couldn't remember his first cigarette, but he had to have been only eight or nine. It was a case of monkey-see-monkey-do; Catherine had been a heavy smoker, so he'd always associated menthols with her. With her, and with comfort, and with all that other warm-and-fuzzy shit that he knew better than to allow himself.

Jason balanced his lit cigarette on the window ledge. It shed a quarter-inch of ash, which he smeared on the linoleum with his toes. He'd clean it up for real later. Sure. He just didn't feel like bending over to wipe it up, and snubbing a cig that he'd barely smoked at all felt like too much of a waste.

And he really needed to rub one out. It was hard to lay next to Dick all night and be sexiled due to medical reasons. He didn't care as much as he should have if he reopened his healing wounds or not.

Jason felt the burning pull of his sutures; he pressed his free hand against the wound, like holding it in would keep it from reopening. He dug his fingers in, hissing. Each jerk of his cock ripped a little twinge of pain through his belly, and he liked that a hell of a lot more than he should have.

God, he was a fuck up.

Jason braced his forearm against the wall, his sweaty skin sticking to the paint. He jerked himself hard, harder than he normally did, because he needed the aggressive friction. It didn't feel good, but it hurt less than everything else in his head. He leaned his forehead against his arm, closing his eyes and imagining his fingers. He liked Dick's fingers. His hands were smaller than Jason's, but his fingers were strong, his calluses carefully trimmed. Dick took care of his hands, because as an aerialist, strong hands kept him alive---him, and everyone he touched.

Dick was all about the trapeze. His whole fucking body. The tension and release, the way he twisted and arched and stretched, how _powerful_ he looked when he moved---he lived like he was on display. He encouraged the whole world to watch him. 

Dick had to know that he was being watched. That's why, when they 'made love', he demanded on eye contact. He talked to him. He made them a two-person act, completely _there_ instead of being caught up in a selfish internal fantasy. 

Jason's stomach hurt. The incisions throbbed, but that little bit of pain, that white-hot pulse of an ache, was what finally pushed him over the edge. He splattered the wall, muffling himself against the crook of his arm. 

It wasn't easy to deny it when he moaned his name, so he bit himself and hissed instead. 

He cleaned himself up, then wiped the floor and wall down with a wet rag. After washing his hands again, Jason flicked off the bathroom light and padded back into bed. It didn't totally surprise him when Dick wormed closer to him, fitting himself against him again. 

"You're not s'posed to do that," Dick mumbled, his voice sleep-thick. 

"Do what?" Jason asked with bulletproof innocence, pressing his cold feet against Dick's calves. He twisted away with a yelp, kicking like a horse. Dickiebird was sensitive to cold feet. Jason enjoyed this fact.

"You're not supposed to smoke." After a moment, Dick sighed and added, "Or jerk off." 

So he'd heard him. Whatever. Jason didn't regret either sin. He was relaxed now, able to finally wind down and enjoy Dick's warmth and proximity. He slung an arm over his side, curling into him.

"Yeah, well, I live dangerously," Jason mumbled into the warm hair at the nape of Dick's neck. "If I can't smoke, fight crime, and get my rocks off, life's not worth living." 

"You're a masochist." 

"Probably," Jason agreed, and grinned at the dark.


	7. Chapter 7

In a weird way, the sex ban was the best thing that could have happened to them, Dick thought. Since his sudden reappearance in his life, he and Jason had been using sex to circumvent having to talk about things. Despite being the chattiest ones in their family, neither of them were particularly good at knuckling down and really _talking._ Dick had too many questions that he wanted to ask, but couldn't, and Jason had too many things to say that Dick didn't want to hear. Jason's problems hadn't gone anywhere, the nightmares had yet to significantly improve, and Bruce had yet to dole out an ultimatum. When they screwed around instead of argued, they managed to peaceably coexist in his small apartment despite all that. But Jason's injury had put a stop to that way of life, so they'd had to start doing two of the most dangerous things possible: talking and listening to each other. 

It wasn't easy. As Jason weaned himself off his painkillers---which he did much sooner than Leslie recommended---he went from being helplessly floppy and needy to being a cranky bastard who was simultaneously enduring pain and narcotic withdrawals. Their first fights were extremely loud and trivial, usually brought on by Dick catching Jason doing things that he wasn't supposed to be doing. His little brother had no patience for his own healing process, so he pushed his limits every time Dick glanced away for a few moments. When he'd first moved in, he'd used working out as a way of passing time and keeping fit. Jason reopened his wounds two more times doing stupid shit like sit-ups before Dick finally threatened to tell Alfred. He wouldn't have---he didn't want Alfred or Bruce thinking that he couldn't take care of Jason when he was (supposedly) in an incapacitated state---but the threat was strong enough to keep Jason from training. 

They got to know each other. It was a slow process, peppered with squabbling and misunderstandings, but Dick was persistent. Jason couldn't fight him physically, couldn't derail things with sex, and was stuck with him during the daylight hours. Dick wore him down little by little, pestering until he started getting fewer swear words and sarcastic comments and more honest insight into the man that his little brother had grown into. 

Because he definitely was a man, now. Sometimes, it blew Dick away that he was only a few years older than Tim---Tim was unquestionably still a boy, but Jason just wasn't. It wasn't just his size, either. Life had aged Jason prematurely, so Dick had to remind himself that he was only eighteen---and barely that. He had moments of teenagerly irrationality, but for the most part he was a man. 

A good man, in Dick's opinion. A good man that he was proud of. A good man that he was willing to work with, even when he made that impossibly difficult. A good man that he looked forward to seeing again when the Blüdhaven skies turned misty gray and he turned in from patrolling. A good man that he was determined to help, and that he openly loved. 

But he'd learned his lesson when it came to telling Jason that. He wasn't ready for the 'L' word, no matter how much Dick thought he needed to hear it. Half of getting to know Jason had been getting to know the things he couldn't say and couldn't do around him. It was a trial and error thing. The more Jason healed, the less Dick pressed, because the more Jason healed, the higher the possibility was that he'd simply get up and leave if he said the wrong thing. 

And there were just too many wrong things available for Dick to say. Unfortunately, by the time Jason had stayed with him for two months, he'd ran out of small fights. He tried not to think about the things he was avoiding---the small herd of elephants in the room whenever he was with Jason, and the echoing absence of Tarantula in the 'Haven, despite Dick's best efforts at locating her---and the effort he was putting into not thinking was giving him a serious migraine. It didn't help that the phone had been ringing off and on for most of the evening. The caller I.D. popped up the same number each time, and seeing it made Dick's stomach pull into a progressively tighter knot. 

After the fifth time, Dick slammed down the file he'd been organizing, got up, and unplugged the phone with a hard yank. 

"What's got you acting all Antisocial Annie?" 

Jason arched an eyebrow at Dick over the top of his dainty little pudding cup. He was _constantly_ eating. Dick had made the mistake of joking about how he should watch his caloric intake until he could work out again, but Jason had frozen up in that way he'd come to associate with thin ice. There was a certain stiffness in the roll of his fingers when he popped his knuckles that was an immediate warning sign. Jason'd muttered something about hating to sleep on an empty stomach, and Dick didn't pry for more. He could put two and two together. Some part of Jason's brain still feared going to bed with hunger gnawing in his gut, and Dick didn't know what to say to that. There were no right answers, because Jay had it in his head that compassion was synonymous with pity---and pity made him go from calm to dangerously livid at a snap. 

"I'm not being antisocial. It's just---it's Gannon. He keeps calling, and I don't know what to say to him. He wants me to protest my dismissal. Apparently, the police have been having trouble. They're seriously stretched thin, and I _wish_ I could go back, but…" Dick sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "You know what Amy said." 

"You're lucky you're pretty," Jason said, scraping the last of the pudding out with his spoon. "'Cause you're sure as hell not very clever." 

Dick frowned at him. "What?"

"Amy said she hated to let you go, but she couldn't protect you. And for some godawful reason, you just looooove being the good cop," Jason gestured at him with a roll of his eyes and a jab of his spoon. "So keep gumshoeing it up, but do it _privately_. The police can use a consultant, so be a private dick, Dick. Spin the story that yeah, you had specialized training the whole time, but you wanted to keep a low profile so that you could root out the corruption in the ranks. Which is the truth, right?" 

"Oh. You're---you're right." 

"Of course I am," he said, faintly smug. "I'm the clever one. Clever Mr. Todd, crazy as a fox. That's what a tod is, y'know. A dude fox."

Dick sat down next to him, wiping a smudge of chocolate pudding from the corner of his mouth with his thumb. 

"My, Mr. Todd, what big eyes you have." 

"The better to see you with, my dear," Jason said, batting his eyelashes. 

"My, Mr. Todd, what big ears you have," Dick continued, straddling his lap.

"The better to hear you with," Jason growled, grinding up into him with a tick of his hips. Dick huffed a groan.

"Why, Mr. Todd, what big teeth you ha---"

He didn't get to finish that thought, because Jason brushed aside the collar of his shirt with his knuckles and bit down on the curve of muscle between his throat and shoulder. When Jay bit, he left marks. The throbbing, scintillating little sparks of pain made Dick groan. He kissed him, tasting menthols and chocolate. 

Sometimes, Dick just wrapped him up and pressed close, like maybe he could keep him there in that moment, static and unharmed, if he held on tight enough. Clever Mr. Todd always seemed to be two shakes from rattling himself apart, and holding onto him was the only preventative measure he could think of. Of course, Jay was too big for that---too tall, too broad, too many invisible cracks to press his fingers to and he couldn't reach them all---but Dick tried. Sitting still for any real stretch of time was maddening, but for his brother, he tried. He had to.

No. He wanted to. There was a difference. 

"You look at the calendar today?" 

Dick arched an inquisitive eyebrow at him. "Should I have?" 

"S'been six weeks," Jason said, looking up at him lazily through the fringe of his lashes. The corner of his mouth curled with a grin. 

"Oh," Dick said, and then _"Oh,"_ again when he realized what Jason meant by that. Six weeks since his accident, six weeks of healing, six weeks until the doctor said he could get back to normal 'rigorous' activities. Six weeks of imperfect abstinence. They'd cheated in small ways, but they hadn't really made love since the afternoon before Jason had nearly been gutted. It had been a _long_ six weeks, in so many ways. 

He slid his hand under Jason's shirt, pulling it up to the middle of his chest and examining him. The staples and stitches were long gone, leaving only shiny pink stretches of scar tissue. Dick stroked the ugly lumpy lines with his fingertips. He had put on some weight since he'd been forbidden to so much as lift ten pounds, but he'd be back to fighting fit in no time. 

Which begged the question of what he would do now. Would Bruce okay him for re-training and patrol? Would he go back to Gotham? Would he just _go?_ When Jason had been wounded, Dick hadn't had to worry about whether or not he'd be in the apartment when he came back from patrols. He'd needed him, and they'd both known it. 

"We should celebrate," Dick announced brightly. 

"How about we start with leaving the apartment?" Jason said, and Dick's stomach clenched. Great. "Honest to God, I will throw myself out a window if I stay cooped up in here for much longer. There are only so many hours per day that I can devote to Robot Unicorn Attack before I lose it." 

_"Hours_ per day?" 

"What else am I supposed to do while you're patrolling? I sit, swear at dolphins, and wait to get callbacks." Jason frowned, gesturing choppily with both hands. "Those fucking dolphins. You'd think that a robot unicorn would have like, shoulder-mounted turrets or something. Wish it did." He sighed wistfully. "I would shoot the shit out of those dolphins." 

"I thought we had an understanding about your gun fetish, Jay," Dick said, sitting back. He could feel the mood teetering. Whenever the subject of his house arrest came up, Jason's claws came out. He didn't blame him, really. He'd been patient, but as of yet, Bruce hadn't made a decision either way. The longer it dragged on, the more it seemed like Bruce had decided that Jason was unfit for vigilante work, and was waiting for them to figure that out. He understood his frustration, but Dick was getting sick of having it directed at him. 

"Sure," Jason said with a smile that was all teeth. "I like shooting things, and you understand that whether you like it or not. That hasn't changed." 

_"Jason."_

"Drop it. I have a whole list of questionable personality traits for you to whine about, _Richard._ Spice it up a little, would you?" 

He should have dropped it. He knew that even before he opened his mouth. This wouldn't---couldn't---be a small argument. 

But he couldn't drop it. Not this time. 

"You're not that person," Dick burst out, exasperated. "Why do you keep trying to be that way?" 

"I am that person," he said evenly. Confidently. It made Dick's palms sweat. 

"You're not." 

"Is that what you told him?" Jason laughed, low and unpleasant. "You didn't tell him what I planned to do. Did you?" 

How had they gone from necking to this? Jason could swing from one extreme to another with dizzying speed. 

"No. Should I have?" 

"You asking my _opinion_ , or are you trying to ask if I've still got 'kill the Batman' on my bucket list?" 

"If I thought you still wanted him dead," Dick said, with perfect honesty. "You wouldn't be here." 

"What if I'm just winning you over to get a better angle at him? What if I'm letting you do the hard work of breaking down his guard for me? What if I _let_ myself get injured?" 

Jason had two flavors of argumentative. The usual one---the one that was relatively easy to deal with---was loud and brassy and explosive. The other was a low simmer, calm and scarily persuasive. Dick hated it when he got like that, because he _knew_ where he'd picked it up from. 

Bruce. That was how Bruce argued, and Dick had a long history of losing arguments with Bruce Wayne.

"I won't let you do that without a fight." 

"You'd die for him." It was a statement, not a question. 

"Yes," Dick said, with absolute surety. 

That scenario was, unfortunately, something that he'd put a lot of thought into. He always wound up with the same answer. Babs had said it best: they all jumped at the chance to throw themselves in the line of fire for each other. 

"Yeah? Well, I did," Jason snarled, and the sudden venom in his voice made the fine hair prickle on the back of Dick's neck. "Fat fucking load of good that did me. Wise up, Dickiebird. You've got to live for you, or you're going to let the Bat drive the rare Flying Grayson into extinction."

Pushing him away, he stood, straightening to his admittedly impressive full height. Without another word, he turned toward the door and started walking.

Dick felt throttled. 

_"Jay."_

"What?" He asked, flicking a sharp look back at him. 

"Do us both a favor and take your own advice. You have to move on. I can't bury you again." 

"Do us both a favor," Jason said, his hands curled into white-knuckled fists. "Next time, cremate me." 

"No," Dick snapped, louder than he'd intended. When Jason just kept walking toward the door, he grabbed a fistful of his shirt and pulled hard. _"No."_

A strange mix of guilt and anger flashed hotly in Jason's blue-gray eyes. This was about something else, wasn't it?

"Why are you doing this?" Jason demanded.

"Why am I doing what?" 

"What you think I want. Pretending like we're not doing anything. Maybe even having sex. You tell me."

Jason might as well have punched him square in the gut. The accusation took the wind out of him. 

"I'm sharing a bed with you because I want to!" Dick said, his eyes wide. He couldn't believe he'd said that, thought that, felt that. "I _told_ you, Jay. I love you." 

"Yeah, but see, I keep asking myself if it's that kind of love, of it it's some truly fucked up kind of brotherly love, where you'll screw yourself up if it'll keep me on the side of the angels." 

Dick exhaled shakily. 

"If I'm screwing myself up, it's not your fault." 

"'Cause if you are---I mean, be honest with yourself---I'll---" 

"I want you to stay," he interrupted, because he just could not have this argument with him. He didn't want to think about it. His feelings were what they were. Why try to dissect them? "I'm not doing _anything_ that I don't want to do either way." 

"Then you've got to stop being a _dick_ , Dick, and let me help you fix whatever's fucking your head up." 

"And what about you?" Dick challenged before he could stop himself---before he could think about what he was saying and how much deeper he was digging. "What about your head?"

Jason went silent. Seconds dragged by, cloyingly thick, but he didn't say a word. His cheeks flexed as he clenched his teeth angrily, but he didn't respond.

"Hypocritical or not, Bruce doesn't want you patrolling because of where your head is at," Dick said, when it was clear that he wasn't going to get a response. His throat felt too dry, too tight, to roll with a proper swallow. He breathed in hard through his nose. "You're not in a good place. I know you know that."

Still, nothing. Dick almost wanted to beg him to say something, anything, even continue the fight if that was what he wanted. But then Jason shook his head. Just once, slow and small. He looked so resigned, Dick's chest bloomed with an ache that felt as deep as bruised ribs. 

"Can't fix that," Jason mumbled finally, brows pinched. 

"Yes, we _can,"_ Dick insisted, lightly touching his shoulder. When he didn't shrug him off, he squeezed reassuringly. "You're not the only one with nightmares. You think Bruce doesn't get them? You think _I_ don't get them?"

The anger visibly drained out of him. It didn't leave much left. 

"What do you do?" 

The question ran through him as a ripple of surprise, then relief. He nodded, sitting back down on the couch. After a moment's hesitation, Jason joined him. It was a good thing that they dropped out of fights almost as quickly as they fell into them. There was always a little bit of emotional whiplash, but it could have been worse. Jason hadn't left. Jason was asking for help. Dick could work with that. 

"I've had this one reoccurring nightmare for...two, maybe three years, now," Dick said, rubbing his jaw. He could see it in his mind's eye, the lurid charivari of the damned. "It starts out with me up on the board again, waiting to start the show. I'm back to being a kid, so I'm---I'm small. Weak. I watch my parents fall. Then, I fall. But I never hit ground. It's like that one scene in Alice in Wonderland, where she falls through the rabbit hole and things whiz by---but it's stuff like Bane breaking Bruce in half like an accordion, and Joker at a shooting range where all the targets look like Babs, and then him hosting a cooking show, and he's tenderizing the stuffed Robin with a---" The word stuck in his throat. He swallowed. "---crowbar, and---and I'm always falling. And I can't save anyone. Not Bruce, not Babs, and especially not you." 

"You have nightmares where the Joker hosts a cooking show with me as the main course?" 

"When you say it like that, it sounds ridiculous." 

"Something is seriously wrong with your head, man," Jason said with the ghost of a smirk. "And this is coming from the guy with brain damage." 

_"Anyway._ I chose to focus on changing the dream, not dreaming about something else. I know myself. I'm stubborn, even when I don't want to be." Dick scrubbed his hand over his eyes. "So I give my parents somewhere soft to land." 

"You don't try to catch them?" Jason asked, frowning. 

"No. Like I said: I'm stubborn. I know that I'll never be able to catch them. I know that they're gone. So I just…imagine that they never felt the landing." 

Jason fell back into pensive silence. It absolutely set his teeth on edge. Dick hated silence. He always felt compelled to fill it, but he never knew what to say. Too often, he chose the wrong things, and not even his best intentions could keep it all glued together.

"Two nightmares," Jason said, his rumbling voice so quiet, Dick thought he'd imagined it at first. "I've got two main ones, at least. They're both the times I 'woke up', but in the nightmares, I just wake up to die again. I used my belt buckle to dig out of the coffin, but in the dream? The weight of the dirt and worms and shit just comes crashing down and suffocates me. The other dream's the Pit. Drowning in it. Dying, but not being able to really die, since that youth juice just brings me back. Over and over. Not scared of dying anymore. I do it all the time."

Jason stared at a fixed point on the ceiling. His eyes were glassy, wet. 

"I think." Dick cleared his throat, then tried again. Suddenly, his nightmares seemed so childish in comparison. His were fears. Jason's were much, much closer to reality. "I think maybe we should just train you to have a different dream. Nightmares can be learned behavior, so if you teach yourself to dream of something else instead, you might be able to break the cycle. So. What would you choose to dream about, if you could dream about anything?" 

"The first time I put on the suit." Jason closed his eyes, exhaling slowly. "Best day of my life. Bar none."

There was a longing in Jason's voice, but it was strained. It was his best memory, but one that hurt to even think about. Dick understood---hell, he'd never forget the first time he'd stood at Batman's side. The difference was, he'd had a pretty good life before his parents' deaths. Those memories had never been trampled or changed. He'd had good things before becoming Robin, and good things after. 

Jason had loved his mother, but then found out that she wasn't his birth mother. He'd found his birth mother, and then she'd sold him out to the Joker. The Joker had not only beaten him to death, he'd killed his belief in Batman and Robin. 

Robin had been the best thing Jason had, and even that had been taken from him. 

Dick decided that he was going to fix that. Getting up, he opened up the closet and yanked his spare suit and domino mask off the hanger. He dropped the oily-dark fabric in Jason's lap. 

"Put it on," he said as Jason pulled the suit between his hands and stared at it dumbly. 

"It won't fit me," Jason said, though he could tell that he was testing the stretch. 

"It will," Dick insisted. "It has a lot of give. Put it on." 

"Why?" 

"We're going out. Maybe if we can jog your flying memories, it'll be easier to dream about it." 

"Bruce'll have kittens," Jason said, tracing over the brilliant blue _v_ across the suit's chest. "Fucking litters of kittens." 

"This isn't Bruce's city," Dick said. "It's mine. And I'm telling you to put it on and lace up your boots. We're not going to patrol, and we're not going to look for trouble. We're just going to go on a walk. A celebratory walk." 

 

*

 

The celebratory walk didn't stay a walk for long. His reaction time was a little slower than usual and he wasn't quite as sure-footed, but Jason was basically healed. As soon as that clicked over in his head---and Dick could almost see the realization, since it made him grin---walking was the last thing that he wanted to do. He flew like only a former Robin could have. So Dick lead him through his city, loving that whenever he flicked a look over his shoulder, his little brother was mirroring his movements as seamlessly as a shadow. 

It reminded him of when they used to patrol together. Back then, Jason had tried so hard to prove to him that he was ready, that he was good, that he was capable, and that he was a _hero_. He hadn't always gotten it right, but he'd poured every ounce of himself into it. 

That hadn't changed. Jason was still trying to prove most of those things to him, and to Bruce. Dick wondered if he ever got tired of it. 

More than that, he wondered what would happen if he stopped trying. 

He pinched that thought off like an artery, drying it up. It wasn't worth thinking about, because it wouldn't happen. Jason _was_ ready, _was_ good, _was_ capable, and _was_ a hero. Dick believed that with every part of himself. 

They ran the Spine from the Melville section of town to Gotham Bay, following the lewd and dirty core of the city until it broke into the stink of the docks. When he caught his breath, laughing, Dick turned to tell Jason that he'd earned a couple of pudding cups with that run. But his shadow abruptly disappeared. Dick wasn't positive where he'd lost him, but the realization made him stop dead in his tracks. 

Panic crackled in his veins, and he looked around wildly. The housing perched on Avalon Hill was one of the nicest parts of town, built when Blüdhaven still had a little cash and hope to rub together. The brick buildings had probably been stately and prim a hundred years back, but decades of pollution and disrepair had eroded them into long, jagged silhouettes. The buildings looked less like a skyline and more like rotten teeth jutting up out of the horizon. 

Jason couldn't have taken off. He wouldn't have. Yes, he'd loaned him his spare suit, and yes, the gauntlets and gloves had tools in them, and yes, that was as close to outfitted as Jason had been since he'd locked his dangerous handful of worldly belongings in a safe, but he wouldn't have taken it and left. He wouldn't. Despite claims to the contrary, he wasn't that person. He knew him. He knew he wasn't. 

The thought spun in Dick's head, slick with denial. He wouldn't, he wouldn't, he wouldn't. 

Would he? 

Dick flicked down the starlight lenses in his mask, illuminating his vision. Maybe he'd lost him by accident. Maybe if he just stood still and waited for a few seconds, he'd show up. 

But there was nothing. Just the disproportionately nice homes up on the Hill and the mess of a city at its feet. He couldn't see the blue slash of his borrowed Nightwing uniform anywhere.

"That's cheating, Dickiebird," a low voice said in his ear, richly amused. Dick lashed out on impulse, purely reactionary, but Jason caught his fist. He grinned impishly, looking far too pleased with himself. It was strange, seeing him in his costume. Strange, but not bad.

"Missed me?" 

"Don't do that again," Dick warned, but he was too relieved to make it sound like a real threat. Jason must have gotten a stitch in his side from running hard after so many weeks without exercise. He shouldn't have instantly jumped to the worst case scenario---it wasn't fair to him. 

Jason stooped to kiss him. If there was one thing that six weeks without sex had improved, it was his kissing technique. 

"Thanks," he murmured. 

"For what?" Dick asked, wondering where that had come from. He wasn't in the habit of giving out thank yous willy-nilly. Or ever, really. 

"This." Jason closed his eyes, spreading his arms wide and breathing deeply. "'Cause _this_ was worth my spleen." 

Bathed in the milky moonlight reflecting off the bay, he looked peaceful. Peaceful and Jason Todd were two things that rarely crossed paths, so Dick took a moment just to enjoy the sight. When he was like that, he looked more like a boy than a man. It stirred up a sense of wistfulness in Dick---and a little bit of sadness, too, because the only time Jason looked truly young was when he was out in the night. 

That wasn't how life was supposed to work, but the night had claimed Jason a long, long time ago. 

 

*

 

As it turned out, Gannon Malloy was a very determined man. Failing to return calls and unplugging the phone weren't enough to dissuade him, as Jason found out firsthand. He'd been working on his little personal project, since Dick was out running errands and he was guaranteed at least two solid hours to himself. Working on it had become difficult since Dick had started spending most of his days in the apartment, but he was still making steady---if slow---progress. 

The knock at the front door made him swear in surprise. Despite being popular around the complex, Dick didn't get very many visitors. As such, they didn't have a preset agreement on whether or not he should let anyone in when he was away. 

Curiosity got the better of Jason. Pulling on a pair of sweats, he answered the door. 

Officer Malloy blinked rapidly. "Uh---I'm sorry, I must---"

"You've got the right apartment," Jason cut him off with a wave of his hand. "But Dick's not in right now. Should I tell him you stopped by?"

Gannon had the good looks and wholesomeness of a Ken doll. He smoothed back his hair, smiling at him awkwardly. 

"That'd be great. Do you…live with Dick?"

"Yeah, he's my---uh." He didn't have an answer for that. Dick was his awkward, label-defying 'uh'.

"Brother?" Gannon prompted, but something about his tone didn't match up. Jason ran his tongue over his teeth, trying at a negligent shrug. 

"Sure, something like that."

"I thought Dick said he was an only child."

Jason just shrugged again. He did not want to be having this conversation, especially without Dick present. He was usually a pro at playing the fuzz---he had to be; his glib charm had been carefully cultivated from a young age---but he didn't have it in him right then.

"Look, if you and him--- mean, not to _assume_ anything, but..." 

This guy totally thought that he was Dick's boyfriend, Jason realized. 

Shit. _Was_ he Dick's boyfriend? 

The thought hadn't really occurred to him. 

"Yeah," Jason said, just to try out how it'd sound if he said it aloud. "He's my boyfriend." 

And it didn't sound half bad. A little weird, but he could get used to it. He wouldn't wave it around much---not in front of Bruce, that was for goddamn sure---but it...yeah, he could get used to the way it made the corners of his mouth pull up into a reflexive grin. 

"Wow," he said, then, _"Wow,"_ again. "Dick kind of pinged my radar, but I didn't think..." 

"He was the new guy. Got enough heat as it was, I heard. You're..." Jason feigned ignorance, frowning. Then he snapped his fingers. "O'Malley, right?" 

He was Gannon James Malloy, age twenty-six. He'd moved to the 'Haven shortly after completing his Academy training. His partner was a man named Ellis, and they'd been together for three years. Gannon had been Dick's partner for four months. He was good---one of the best rookies, and a genuinely honest man. He was a Capricorn. He liked romantic comedies. 

Jason was in the habit of knowing things that might be relevant. The very attractive gay police officer that Dick had spent half his day with was definitely relevant. 

"Malloy," he said, crinkling a smile and offering his hand to be shaken. "Gannon Malloy. It's great to meet you---?" 

"Jay," Jason said, because if he ended up using a fake name, Jay could be hung on any number of possibilities. "And Dick and I haven't been together for too long, so don't beat yourself up about not knowing about me, Gan my man. Want to come in and have a soda or beer or something?" 

"You twenty-one, Jay?" 

"Underage drinking has landed me in cuffs a couple of times already," he said with an exaggerated wink. "If you know what I mean." 

 

*

 

Gannon didn't stay long. He nursed half a diet soda, peppered him with all kinds of well-meaning and intrusive questions, and then left Jason to stew in his juices. He was a decent guy, but pretending to be Dick's dumb jock boyfriend---the easiest identity to assume; he wasn't expected to answer any deep questions or facilitate the conversation in any meaningful way---had left a weirdly bitter taste in his mouth. 

He didn't get much work done after that. He couldn't concentrate past the singing note of tension that was making his fingers tremble. It shouldn't have gotten to him. He _hated_ that it'd gotten to him.

"Psst. Hey. Jay. Over here." 

Jason looked up from the laptop at the sound of his name. Blinking, he glanced to where it'd come from---out the living room window, which got more use in the apartment than the front door did. 

Dick was hanging upside down from the rungs of the fire escape, a bouquet in hand and a stupidly wide grin on his face.

Jason slowly closed the laptop, scowling. 

"You'd better be joking." 

"Heard something interesting today," Dick said as if he hadn't heard him, crawling in the window. When Jason continued to give the bouquet the stink eye, he just set it on the coffee table and shifted his weight from foot to foot like a kid that had to pee.

This did not bode well. 

"Yeah?" 

"I went and talked to Amy about consulting, like you suggested---she said she'll think about it, but I've got a good feeling about it. Anyway, I ran into Gannon on my way out. He congratulated me on having netted a ten."

Dick paused meaningfully, clearly searching for a reaction. What kind of reaction, he wasn't sure. Did he want him to spill the entirety of the conversation he'd had with Gannon, like it was some kind of guilty secret? If Jason took the time to feel guilty for every little lie he told, he wouldn't have much time left in his day for all of the other noxious feelings he couldn't seem to get rid of. 

"He said that he's glad that I found someone," Dick continued, emphasizing _someone_ like Jason just wasn't getting the picture. "Because he's been worried about me ever since I broke up with Babs. He said that with the force being what it is right now, we all really need to have someone to come home to---otherwise, we're on the fast track to burnout."

"That's awful sweet of him," Jason said, stretching out his legs and crossing them at the ankle. "Calling me a ten." 

Dick sighed. 

"Look. Did you tell him that I'm your boyfriend?" 

"Is that why you brought me _flowers?"_ Jason deadpanned, looking at the bouquet distastefully. Sometimes, he wondered if Dick forgot that he was sleeping with someone with a penis---someone who didn't need or want romancing via flowers. He couldn't imagine how he could forget that very important, impressive detail. 

"I asked you a question first." 

"He said you don't have any brothers. What was I supposed to say?" He put a hand to his cheek in mock horror. "Goodness gracious, does this mean that we're _homosexuals?"_

"That isn't funny."

"It's a little funny," Jason countered, which seemed to incense Dick all the more. He huffed a hard breath, color climbing in his cheeks.

"Can we be serious about this for a few seconds? We can't avoid talking about this forever."

"Define 'this'." 

"This," Dick repeated, gesturing between them. "Do you _want_ me to be your boyfriend?" 

Jason just shrugged. 

"We do a lot of fucking for being 'brothers'." 

"Don't say that." 

"What? We do." He folded his arms behind his head, glancing up at the ceiling. "You're in a lull between gooey relationships with leggy ladies, so you're fucking me. I don't have a problem with that."

"Don't _say that,"_ Dick repeated plaintively, and he sounded more hurt than anything else. 

"Say what? Fucking? Stow your tender sensibilities, Grayson. We're fucking, you and me." 

"No. Maybe you are, but I'm not. I don't do that. I don't do that to anyone. I could. If I wanted to have sex, it wouldn't be hard for me to find someone willing to get in bed with me," Dick said, pacing. It was hard for him to keep still under good conditions, but when he got his emotions running he rattled all over. "I'm not being egotistical---I get offers, you know? But I don't do that. That's not who I am." 

"Oh, right. You _make love,"_ Jason said, framing it with exaggerated finger quotations.

"You're damn right I do. Because if I'm sleeping with someone, it's because I love them. Because I want them to know how much I love them. Because---" He searched for the right words, pressing his lips into a hard line. "---because I want to be with them, and have a future with them, and have them love me back." 

"Like I said," Jason muttered. _"We're_ fucking." 

"Is that what you want? You want this just to be sex?"

"C'mon, Dickie. You know I'm not the type you take home."

"Lucky for me," Dick said, voice tight, "Your home is mine, too." 

Jason laughed. His brother flinched like he'd physically struck him. 

"You really think that. You really, honestly think that," he said, almost amazed at the strength of his denial. Too bad he couldn't weaponize that. "Christ. If he wanted me back, I'd be in Gotham. I'm not. There's your answer."

 _"I_ want you back!" Dick shouted, arms flung wide. Dick was getting angry. Really, truly angry. It was kind of beautiful to watch. He was righteous and incandescent. _"I_ want to be with you! I never asked because---because I _knew_ you'd be like this!"

Jason took slow, even breaths. In through his nose, out through his mouth. He wouldn't let it get to him. It could, so easily. That's what Dick wanted, probably. He wanted him to take the bait, to believe him. 

"You want to be my boyfriend." 

"Yes!" 

"Let's talk endgame," Jason said, for once the calm and patient one. He had to be. If he lost it, they'd build against each other until they started fighting or fucking. And according to Dick, they weren't doing the latter. "Let's pretend you're not going to drop this and move on when I don't 'need' you anymore."

"Jason---"

"Nuh-uh. Listen," Jason said, shaking his head. "You're the kind of guy who wants to make a family. You want to find 'the one', and you want to settle down. Sooner or later, you want to hear the patter of little pixie boots and know that you're not the only Flying Grayson anymore. That's the plan." He worked a hand through his hair, agitated. He didn't want to have to say this, but he wasn't about to let Dick stay with him because of...because of what? Pity? Obligation? _Guilt?_ "And I'm not mommy material."

Dick's arms dropped to his sides, loose and relaxed again. He offered him a watery smile.

"Then I'll be the mom." 

"I'm not kidding," Jason warned. 

"Neither am I," he said, shaking his head. "I don't know of many people I'd trust more around children. And you'll get there. I believe that. You'll get past the nightmares, and Bruce---Bruce'll get there, too."

"This conversation got real serious real fast, didn't it." Jason wasn't sure if he was upset or mad or both. His heart slammed in his ears. "Problem is, you're talking to yourself. This is nothing but a pretty little story you've built up in your head. You want Babs, man. You want someone you don't have to paste back together." 

Dick didn't say anything for a long moment. Then, he sighed.

"You through playing devil's advocate? Because I think I'm enough of an adult to decide what I want." 

"You never know what you want." 

"Today, Gannon told me that I have a hell of a partner," Dick said, looking at him steadily. "I want him to be right, Jay."

Jason angrily smeared at his eyes. They'd gotten all hot and itchy. Cutting the distance between them in two long strides, he kissed Dick before he could convince himself not to---once again clumsy and messy and doing it too hard and with too much teeth, but he was shit at this. He just needed some kind of closeness, and that was the best he could do.

What was he supposed to say? He didn't know. He was shit at this. Just _shit._

He wanted to say yes. To say whatever someone whose head was in a good place would say. 

"Fuck me," was what came out, half-strangled and high. 

Dick drew back, obviously confused. 

"...I'm pretty sure we just had this conversation." 

"I just." Jason's teeth clacked as his jaw clenched. "I mean---" 

"I know what you mean. C'mon," Dick said, wrapping a loose hand around his wrist. He tugged gently. "We're gonna go make love." 

"Do you _really_ have to call it that?" He asked, sounding like a whiny teenager even to his own ears. 

"Yes, I do," he said, and unbuttoned Jason's jeans. 

And, well, he was less inclined to complain about things when his pants were off. They made their way to the back room, shedding clothes as they went. By the time they got to the bed itself, Dick had a single sock left and Jason had his boxers hooked around one ankle. Both were forgotten as Dick grinned widely and pushed him down on his back. 

"We're going to do something a little different," he announced, reaching for the lube. Popping open the cap with his thumb, he squeezed a liberal amount into his hands. 

"How different?" Jason asked, regretting his stupid request. He'd just blurted it out. He wasn't sure if he'd really meant it. Wasn't sure if he was ready for that. Even with Dick. Even now. 

Dick's smile softened, and the _knowing_ in his eyes made Jason's guts squirm unpleasantly. It wasn't pity, but it was close. He had an objection primed on the tip of his tongue, but then Dick ran his slicked palms up the insides of Jason's thighs, from the bend of his knees to his already flushed cock. His breath caught in his chest and he shivered reflexively as his hands made sure his erection was slick and hard. He'd started to soften, but Dick took care of that with a few practiced tugs. 

"If you don't like this, we'll stop," Dick said, blue eyes earnest. "I just---your _thighs---"_

His fingers dug into the thick muscle, kneading his slippery skin. Dick rocked into him, thrusting into the wet cleft between his thighs, and Jason groaned. No penetration, but he still got the friction of his cock against sensitive skin. 

Something different. A compromise. Jason squeezed, hips bucking up to match him. Dick set a lazy rhythm, like he was in no rush to hit orgasm---like he was happy enough just to rock slotted against him, comfortable and close. 

No way in hell was he ever going to call it making love, but it was difficult to call it fucking when Dick crooned sweet, stupid little praises in his ear, the flash of his teeth bright as he beamed at him. 

 

*

 

Dick fell asleep a very contented man. Not only had he gotten Jason to take it slow and relax, he'd managed to get some post-coital spooning out of him before they'd dropped off. He hadn't said that yes, he was basically officially his partner, but Dick knew that it was like the 'L' word---he'd get there eventually. Terminology tripped him up, even when the desire and intent was there. Jason's snoring was proof enough that he was truly relaxed, his guard down, and that rush of protective warmth had permeated Dick's subsequent dreams. For one rare night, they both slept all the way until morning, undisturbed. Neither jerked awake, gasping or thrashing, and that was a small blessing.

Unfortunately, their morning started too early. Dick was startled awake by the peeling ring of the telephone. He tried to grasp at the shattered bits of his dream before it dissipated---it'd been a good dream, a really good one; he knew that much---but the telephone's obnoxious ringing drove it out of his skull. 

He swore tiredly. Jason grunted his agreement. 

Sighing, he reached over and dragged the phone off the hook.

"'Lo?" Dick croaked, squinting at the clock on the bedside table. It solemnly reported 4:48 in lugubrious red numbers. Four was an ugly hour---too late for the night owls and too early for the early birds. Nobody liked four in the morning.

"Dick! Thank god!" The familiar voice ran a jolt through him. It was Irving, Haly's current manager. There was no good reason for him to call at four in the morning. Plenty of bad ones, though. "Listen, I've got a real emergency here and I don't know who else to call!" 

Dick sat up, instantly awake. There was a knot in his stomach as big as his fist, but he managed to keep a smile pushed up into his voice. The thick arm that snaked around his waist helped. Jason rearranged himself, pillowing his cheek on Dick's thigh with a drowsy snort. 

"Irving? What is it? What's wrong?" 

"We're in Saratoga," the manager said quickly. "How fast can you get here?"

That answered his question well enough. Too sensitive to discuss on the phone, too important to wait until daylight. 

"Pretty fast," he said, which was the truth. Following the speed limits, it was about a five hour drive. Dick figured he could make it in under three. If Irving said it was an emergency, it was an emergency. The panic slurring his words together was enough to shake all of the grogginess out of Dick's system. 

"Okay. Okay. Thank you. I---I just didn't know who else to call." 

"No problem, he said, his tone soothing. "I'll see you in a few hours. Sit tight." 

"S'matter?" Jason asked, yawning. He really regretted the timing, since he was less than excited about leaving a warm bed full of sleepy second Robin. 

But the circus was home. It would _always_ be his home. So when they called, Dick answered. It was that simple.

"Haly's," Dick said shortly, reaching over him to hang the phone up. "Something's wrong. Irving didn't want to get into it over the phone. He just asked me to come, and I can make it up there in three hours if I really step on it. Want to come with?"

"I, uh." Jason's adam's apple bobbed visibly. "I would, man. But. Fuckin' clowns."

Instantly, Dick kicked himself. Of course he'd have some lingering clown-related phobias. And of course he wouldn't want to come out and say that he did. The Joker hadn't taken from Dick anywhere near as much as he'd taken from Jason, and yet he still hadn't been able to look at clowns the same way he had as a child. He got a weird kind of nauseous whenever he caught sight of his own reflection under greasepaint. If it was that hard on him, how bad was it for Jason?

Worse than the way he reflexively winced every time he heard a baseball bat crack something solid, that was for sure.

"I'll bring you home an elephant ear," Dick promised, disentangling himself and slipping out of bed.

"And a corndog," Jason mumbled sleepily. "If you know what's good for you."

The uncomfortable moment passed. Dick breathed a sigh of relief, leaning over and kissing him. Jason was a minefield of a person, but he was learning to navigate his hidden tripwires fairly well.

It hadn't blown up in his face, at least. He'd gotten worryingly close earlier, though. Sometimes, all he could do was take steps forward, hold his breath, and hope that Jason didn't detonate.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter closely follows the events of Nightwing #88, so if some things seem familiar, that's why.

"You want me to _what?"_ Dick demanded, and not for the first time. Irving took off his hat and scrubbed his fingers through his thinning hair. He looked like he hadn't had a decent night's sleep in a week solid, and as much as Dick felt for him---oh, how he empathized---he still couldn't wrap his head around what he was asking him to do. 

"I told you, Dickie," the manager said, pinching the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "I didn't know who else to call. With Oleg gone, Alyssa doesn't have a partner. We're gettin' _filmed_ tonight. You know what that kind of exposure could do for us!" 

"I know, I know," Dick said, holding up his hands in treaty. "But you're kind of dropping a bomb on me here, Irving."

"I don't know what you were expecting, kid. Why else would I call you, if not to ask you to fly?" 

Dick had spent the three hour trip from Blüdhaven asking himself that over and over. He'd come up with a myriad of answers to that question, but none of them had been the truth. Irving had called him in the middle of the night for two reasons. One: Oleg, one half of Haly's pair of headlining flyers, had committed suicide. Two: Irving wanted Dick to take Oleg's place.

The request had gobsmacked him. It'd been so long since the last time he'd performed, the thought of flying for an audience had made his stomach cramp up with a stage fright he'd _never_ experienced before. Of course, it'd been the stories that he'd have to tell to explain why he was still rigging-ready, not the idea of getting up in the rigging itself, that'd bothered him. As far as Irving knew, Dick hadn't kept in shape. The flying trapeze was physically demanding, and Oleg and Alyssa had kept to the Flying Graysons' old standards. There wouldn't be a net spread beneath them. 

"I'm a _cop,"_ Dick tried to say, but Irving barked a hearty laugh and clapped a hand on his shoulder. 

"You're a _Grayson._ Ain't another person alive who can get up there and show the people a quad," he said, squeezing his shoulder. "I know you don't know the routine, and that you barely have any time to perform it, but you're Johnny Grayson's son. You can do this." 

Dick wasn't sure if he should be terrified or warmed by the sincerity of Irving's belief in his abilities. Either way, he knew that there was no way that he'd be able to say no to his request. 

Irving had ambushed him the moment that he'd driven up. Dick had sat on his motorcycle for a few seconds, just watching the roustabouts busily setting up for the show. To him, the circus had never just been what went on under the spotlight. It was the set up, the teardown, and the endless hours spent in transit. It was the people, because they were his family. 

Dick couldn't help but smile. There was just so much sound and so many colors. He forgot how much he missed it all until it was right there in front of him. The crystal glitz and darkness of Gotham had been Dick's home for much longer than Haly's, but he didn't think of it as home. By Dick's definition, home was people, and people traveled. 

If he had to give a more traditional definition for home, though, he wouldn't name the Wayne ancestral manor. Haly's still came first. So to be back made him feel dizzyingly light, despite the circumstances that'd brought him there. 

Dick took a deep breath, sighing. 

"Okay, I---" 

And then something grabbed him. Dick's reflex was to struggle, but something in his head---some long-buried memory, beyond conscious recall---kept him from lashing out. He twisted, eyes widening, and let out a whoop of surprised glee. 

An elephant had lumbered up behind him while he'd been talking to Irving. She'd curled her trunk around his waist and pulled him to her in an unmistakable hug. As much as he'd grown since the last time he'd been to Haly's, the elephant still recognized him. He stroked her trunk, smiling widely. 

"Zitka," Dick breathed, letting her snuffle his hair and inspect him thoroughly. "It's good to see you, too, old girl." 

While most people had childhood pets like dogs and cats and fish, Dick had Zitka. She was a performer, too, so he didn't really _own_ her. Really, it was the other way around. Zitka had laid a claim on little Dickie Grayson around the time that he'd learned to crawl. Dick didn't remember, since he couldn't have been older than a toddler, but his parents had told and retold the story so many times, he sometimes thought that he did remember it. An escape artist from an early age, Dick had wriggled out of his carrier and made it out of the tent before anyone noticed that he was missing. Zitka had found him, and the gentle pachyderm had picked him up and brought him back to his parents. From then on, she'd been his unofficial babysitter, and he'd been her little one. She had a knack for finding him, no matter how far he wandered. 

And she still remembered him. Dick's eyes prickled and his throat burned. He leaned his forehead against her, sighing.

"An elephant never forgets, huh?" A familiar voice said, wry and strained. 

Alyssa patted Zitka's side, but her smile fell far short of her eyes. She was already in her leotard, but she looked pale and withdrawn. Dick's heart sunk, and he extricated himself from his babysitter's trunk so that he could give her a hug. Alyssa was a lifer---like the Graysons, her family had been performers for generations. She'd been born in circus, a few years before Dick himself. The Alyssa of his memories was a powerhouse of a girl flyer with loose brown curls and a cheeky smile. 

This Alyssa was a woman---a beautiful woman---but her sadness made her look impossibly small. She buried her face against his chest. 

"I just heard about Oleg," he said, rubbing her back. "'Lys, I'm so sorry." 

"But Dickie's gonna catch you tonight," Irving cut in, giving him a true showman's smile. "Ain't that right?" 

"Of course," Dick said, and meant it. 

 

* 

 

The lifers Dick had grown up with were adults with kids of their own, so his practice with Alyssa was interrupted by a steady stream of little performers who wanted to finally meet their Uncle Dickie. It made him grin like a loon that a part of him had still been alive at Haly's. They'd kept the Flying Graysons in their stories, so the kids treated him like he'd been there all their lives. Dick made sure to remember every new name just as dutifully as they'd remembered his. The interruptions were very welcome, because Oleg was front and center in Alyssa's mind. That made it easy to pry more details of his death from her, but Dick didn't want to push too hard. She seemed too fragile. 

As Alyssa worked him through the routine, it surprised him how much he wished that Jason had come along. He kept thinking of things that he wanted to tell and show him. As excited as he was, he wanted to share it with someone. He would have loved to get Jason up in the rigging. It'd been a blast to teach Tim, but Tim thought too much. He analyzed everything that he did before he did it, almost to a fault. It made him a wonderful detective, but a stilted acrobat. To really be a flyer, you had to let your body do the thinking for you. 

Most flyers were born into it. The trapeze was far from being for everyone, so the most successful flyers started before they were old enough to fear the dizzying heights. Dick didn't remember ever having been afraid. Jason was like him in that aspect, so he suspected that he'd end up an amazing flyer if he tried. 

But Jason was still working through things, and Dick understood that. He didn't need to put himself in a situation where he might get triggered. He'd come too far to regress over greasepaint and floppy shoes. Dick was proud of him. Maybe he'd be able to convince Irving to do him a favor in return and give him and Jason the ring for a few hours. He did own Haly's, technically, so if he said that he wanted the clowns to clear out for a few hours, he could get that. Dick just hated to make demands, and he worried that special treatment would embarrass Jason. 

An embarrassed Jason was a prickly Jason, and a prickly Jason would shut him out. All Dick wanted was to give his brother a chance to fly with him.

He'd have to bring up the patrolling thing with Bruce again. Jason was ready for it. Even if he wasn't _quite_ ready, being out and doing what he did best would go a long way toward putting him back together. As long as he was with him, he'd have to keep his darker urges in check. Dick was more than willing to be his quippy cricket conscience. 

They took a break just before ten, when Dick's grumbling stomach loudly let everyone in a ten foot radius know that he'd missed breakfast. Evdokiya, the ancient cook that had quite literally known Dick since he'd been in diapers, had been all too happy to feed him after giving his cheeks some thorough pinching. He loaded up on scrambled eggs and Evdokiya's famous banitsa and took the opportunity to check in with Jason. He held his cellphone against his ear and shoulder so that his hands were free to eat.

Jason answered on the second ring. 

"Hel _lo,_ Clarice."

Dick grinned, popping a large bite of phyllo in his mouth. 

"Hello to you, too. I didn't wake you, did I?" 

"Nah," Jason said shortly. "Had to get up early and shower. I promised Dave I'd take a look at the wiring on the second floor today."

Jason had been helping out around the apartment complex during his recovery. He'd always been good with mechanical things, so Dick had tried to point him at constructive ways to spend his downtime. Dave and Jay had really hit it off, to his massive relief. 

"You're turning out to be a pretty great househusband," he teased---mostly because there were a couple hundred miles between them as a buffer. He didn't have to duck the hard smack that kind of comment would've earned him. 

Dick laughed at his own joke, taking another bite. Jason's growly silence made it clear that he'd pay for that comment, one way or another. 

"So, what was important enough that you had to take off in the middle of the night?"

"There was a death," he said, quickly sobering. He chased a lump of pastry around with his fork before spearing it. "Oleg, their star flyer. Suicide, officially." 

"Officially," Jason repeated, and Dick heard the same skepticism in his voice that he felt in his gut.

"It was a benzodiazepine overdose. He was found naked, and according to everyone I've talked to, he was perfectly happy. Nobody even knew that he had insomnia." 

"You really think that he did?" 

Dick chewed thoughtfully for a moment before shaking his head. 

"No. It doesn't add up." 

"Benzo's a muscle relaxant," Jason agreed. "Most athletes avoid those. Plus, if he was planning to punch his own ticket, I doubt he'd want to be found naked. Could be accidental, but it doesn't sound like you think it is."

"Alyssa, his partner, is absolutely convinced that he was murdered," Dick said, lowering his voice. "If anyone would know where his head was at, it'd be her. I believe her." 

"So what? They called the big bossman out at four in the morning for _that?"_

Dick hesitated. He cleared his throat. 

"No, they called me because Alyssa can't do the act alone. They've already missed one show, so they can't afford to cancel another," he said, setting down his fork and rubbing his forehead. The thought alone made his stomach churn. He was infinitely thankful that he had the resources to keep the circus afloat, but even he had his limits. "Irving asked me to perform tonight." 

"And you're going to do it," said Jason, because he knew him. He knew he wouldn't say no to that kind of request, even if it _had_ been years since the last time a Grayson had flown. 

"Yeah. They need me." 

Jason heaved a sigh of mock resignation. 

"I still expect an elephant ear, Dick. That's all I'm saying on the matter." 

"I'll drive back tonight after the show," Dick said, his smile itching its way back to the surface. "Maybe we can go on another run tonight, if you're up to it." 

That treat was loads sweeter than anything from the circus concession stands. Dick knew for a fact that he craved it much, much more. 

"Sure," Jason said, like he wasn't absolutely chomping at the bit. "Keep me posted on your ETA." 

"Will do," he promised. 

He didn't get the opportunity to make good on that promise. 

 

* 

 

Jason had fallen into some bad habits. Namely, enjoying sleeping next to someone else. He hadn't liked sharing a bed with Dick at first, because it'd felt too disgustingly intimate. Fucking was different, the way he saw it. Sex could happen anywhere, and you didn't even have to like the person you were fucking. Jason's history attested to both of those facts. 

Sleeping with someone was different, because it meant sharing blankets, bedding, and heat with someone else for hours. It meant letting go, relaxing his guard and trusting that person enough to allow himself to rest. Dick made it even more intimate, because he insisted on touching him. Sometimes, it was just his ankle hooked around his leg. Most of the time, he woke up with Dick's nose pressed against the nape of his neck and his arm draped over his side. Dick was a cuddler, and he took his cuddles by force when he had to. 

At first, Jason had pushed him away. He'd worm his way out of Dick's grip, but eventually he'd find himself at the edge of the bed---trapped without anywhere else to go. It took time---and frankly, being stapled up and drugged to his eyeballs had helped him adjust to Dick's clinginess.

Dick was patient. He'd broken him down. 

And now, Jason was used to it. Waking up in bed alone after Dick had gotten the call from the circus had made him realize that. He'd forgotten that Dick had left, just for a moment; eyes still closed, he'd stretched his arm out toward Dick's side of the bed and had felt a lurching jolt when his hand closed around cold sheets. 

"Fuck," he muttered to the empty bedroom, squinting. 

Fortunately, Dick wasn't around to see his maudlin little slip up. Jason rolled over, his mood souring just like that. He dragged himself out of bed and took a very brief, very frigid shower. After two bowls of sugary cereal and a cup of coffee, he started feeling like a slightly more reasonable human being. Dick's call didn't surprise him---why else would the circus beg him to come back? He'd figured that they either needed money, or they needed his skills. Turned out, it was the latter. He kind of wished that he'd agreed to go with him, but alone time was rare. 

Clever Mr. Todd had been busy, despite all appearances to the contrary. Between Dick and Barbara's monitoring, he'd had very few opportunities to get things done. Dick had made his job much easier by literally handing him the dossiers on his rogues, but information could only get him so far. After his talk with Cassandra, he'd vowed to watch out for Dick. Jason liked to think of himself as a man of his word, so he'd done what he could with his limited time, privacy, and resources.

Before he'd gone to the mall of the dead to sacrifice himself, Jason had made a house call. Dick had given him a stack of puzzle pieces and all the time in the world to put them together. So, Jason had. It hadn't taken him long to trace Chief Redhorn's killer back to Catalina Flores, former FBI agent and John Law fangirl. He figured that if Dick hadn't been throwing himself in a dozen directions at once, he would have sorted it out himself. Hell, all Jason had had to do was chat with John when he ran into him in the hall. It was almost embarrassingly easy.

Since Jason had been on a tight schedule, he'd had to be very brief and very blunt. He'd only had a few hours to work with; it was a grace period, because he'd known that after he was injured, Dick would blithely forgive him for leaving the apartment in the first place. One well-placed kick had ended the second Tarantula's vigilante career for the foreseeable future. He'd explained to her why her way of doing things wasn't going to work in the long run, admitted that he would have rooted for her if she'd stayed out of Blockbuster's pocket, and then broken her leg. Open fracture. Very nasty. It'd take months to heal, not including physical therapy---months where Tarantula would be completely out of Nightwing's hair. As unorthodox as Jason's methods were, they certainly had results.

He had taught her an important life lesson. When you decide to put on a costume and become a vigilante, you have to prepare yourself for anything. That included crazy men breaking your leg to take you out of the game. He would have felt guilty about it, but by her own admission, Tarantula had been bellied up to Blockbuster's trough for his tablescraps, same as half the dress-ups in town. 

Nightwing had read her the riot act, apparently. Instead of turning her away from vigilantism, it'd spurned her on to make some despicable friends. So Jason had given her a little---or a lot---of tough love. Maybe it was hypocritical of him, but he justified that there was a big difference between his modes and methods and Catalina's: he was trained. He knew precisely what he was doing, and why. He would never be some thug's lapdog. The other way around, maybe, but he'd vowed to never again be in a situation where he wasn't the one in control. 

Catalina was tough. He got the whole gutter childhood thing. But the fact that she'd kowtowed to the biggest scumbag in town the moment Dick had challenged her didn't say good things about her personality. It'd taken Jason all of five minutes of conversation with her to realize that she was on the road to becoming yet another thug with delusions of heroism, and Dick had more important things to take care of. 

So Jason had taken it upon himself to slim down big brother's list of responsibilities. He hadn't lost any sleep over it---no more than he usually lost, at least. He'd called 911 for her before he'd left to meet up with Nightwing at the mall, after all. 

Jason hadn't decided what he was going to do with his alone time. He'd promised Dave that he would help him with the wiring, but that wouldn't take all day. Dick wouldn't be back until well after nightfall. He gulped down another cup of coffee and got dressed. Dave had asked him to meet him in the foyer at eleven, so he had plenty of time. He went downstairs early, and it was a good thing that he did. 

A normal person wouldn't have heard it. Hell, not even a normal vigilante would have heard it. The sound was so small, so innocuous, so easy to drown out. It was meant to be. Nobody was _supposed_ to hear it. 

But Jason's ears were tuned to the sound. He heard it in his nightmares, the inexorable countdown that hit zero right before he snapped awake. 

It was a ticking. Faint and mechanical. It was a ticking bomb. Jason knew. He never really stopped hearing it, so for the first thirty seconds, he thought that he was imagining it---that his ears were ringing from the phantom explosion. He forced himself into a meditative calm, slowing his breath. 

He still heard it. This time, the ticking was real. Keeping his eyes closed and straining his ears, he followed the sound. There was a surprise waiting for him at the end of his little treasure hunt---a small box planted underneath the stairs. There was a bomb underneath the stairs. Someone had planted a bomb underneath the stairs, and it was ticking. _Timed_. He had no way of knowing how long he had until it triggered, bringing down the floors in a pancake effect. 

For the second time in his life, Jason Todd was staring down a bomb. His chest seized, but not with fear. No, he was just fucking _angry._

This wasn't going to happen. He wouldn't _let_ it happen. The whos and whys would come later. In movies, the protagonist would carefully open up the casing, beads of sweat rolling down their face, and worry over which colored wire to cut. That was Hollywood bullshit. Messing with bombs like that could trigger them prematurely, whether or not you lost the wire-cutting gamble. 

Jason inspected the area around the device. Whoever had set it was either not as clever as he was, or just a nicer person. If he had set the bomb, he would have built in an array of heat sensors. Since their personal terrorist hadn't put in that particular backup, they still had a chance. 

Jason pounded back up the stairs, taking them a couple at a time. He desperately wished the bomb had a visible timer---they could have seconds, or they could have hours. Jason treated it like he was watching the red digits flick down from ten, running full tilt. 

Parts of Dick's costume were strewn out on the bedroom floor, right where he'd discarded them post-patrol. Jason grabbed his gauntlets and popped open compartments at random until he found the freeze spray. Not what it was usually used for, but the nitro would work. 

Popular culture thought that getting rid of a bomb was a matter of cutting wires. Bombs didn't like to be played with. They tended to explode when you did that. So the best way to disarm a bomb was to freeze that fucker solid. The electronic components didn't stand up to cold, so the whole thing would be rendered a dud. 

The bomb was still there, still ticking, when he got back downstairs. He sprayed it carefully, thoroughly, until the ticking stopped. 

He hadn't realized he'd been holding his breath until he exhaled, his chest burning. 

This time, he'd done it. No explosion. No deaths. Not his, not anyone's. Jason balled his fist up and pressed it against his mouth, breathing hard through his nose. Blood slammed a steady beat in his ears. 

Someone had tried to blow him up again. 

Jason knew what he was going to do with his day, now. 

 

*

Haly's Circus was known for its flyers, so Dick and Alyssa's act was the finale for the night. Word had gotten around that the Amazing Flying Grayson (singular; painfully singular) had come out of retirement for a one-night performance, so the house was packed. All through practice, Dick'd had some serious misgivings---what if it'd been too long since he'd performed, what if he didn't pick up the routine quickly enough, what if he disappointed the people that'd come expressly to see him fly---but as soon as he got up on the board and lined up, he knew that this was precisely where he was supposed to be. 

The world outside of the tent disappeared under the sizzle of the spotlight. Dick didn't have to force his huge grin as he waved to the crowd. 

God, he'd missed this. Bruce was a creature of the shadows, but he wasn't. He'd been born for bright lights and applause---it was in his blood. Of anything that he'd experienced since riding in that morning, that moment was the most like coming home. He felt more than good---he felt _incandescent._

Catching Alyssa's eye, he mouthed, _I'm doing the quadruple._

And the smile that she gave him was wide and genuine. Moving through the routine---catching, flying, kicking out and soaring to the delighted shrieks around him---was easier than riding a bike. His body remembered how to do this, so it was just a matter of letting go and allowing his muscle memory to reign. The moves that he used during patrol were different---Bruce had chastised him again and again, until he'd streamlined himself and pared his movements down to the bare minimums. Patrolling, he wasn't supposed to be a flashy showman. Dick didn't always stick to that rule, but the only time he'd allowed himself to truly shine had been in his dreams. 

He hadn't physically been up in the rigging for years, but mentally, he'd performed several times a week. In his dreams, Dick flew. In his nightmares, Dick flew, and then fell. 

Twisting gracefully through a quadruple flip, he almost forgot that what he was experiencing was real. Bruce had wanted a soldier, not a showman, so Dick had given him that. He'd abandoned the part of himself that was an Amazing Grayson---or buried it deeply within himself, at least. Flying in front of an ecstatic audience simply felt too good to be reality, so he floated through the routine. 

It didn't surprise him when the dream transitioned. It didn't surprise him, but it took him a precious few seconds to remember that it was real, and not yet another nightmare.

His circus nightmares were usually about the slither-snap of fraying ropes, the wet meat sound of falling bodies hitting ground. This one was new---different. This one was real. The bigtop was in his blood, but vigilantism had ended up his chosen vocation. That training had honed his vision, so even though he was swinging dozens of feet above the ring, he saw the sharp-edged shadow that spread from Firefly's metal wings---fractured by the clashing lights, and almost demonic. He saw him even before he raised his weapon and started throwing long tongues of flame. 

Haly's was one of the few circuses that still used a canvas tent. It was part of their marketing strategy. They kept to the traditional trappings, not even trying to compete with more modern troupes. Haly's offered the kind of European-style, American-influenced circus that parents wanted to take their children to. Harmless, warm, magical; Haly's was a place to build memories of peanut shells and the roving nature of Americana. Being old-fashioned and wholesome was what kept Haly's alive and viable against more contemporary circuses. It was one ring, forty feet around, and the audience was right at their feet. But if they'd had a flame retardant plastic tent and proper stadium seating, things would have played out differently. 

Haly's big top was canvas, and canvas readily burned. 

Fire ate up the king pole. The screams warped, glee turning into shrill terror. Dick's brain stalled, dumbfounded by the impossibility of what he was seeing---he hadn't seen Firefly since Gotham had been declared a no man's land, so it didn't make sense, didn't compute, that he would be in a old time circus in upstate New York. Alyssa screaming his name jerked him out of the head trip. 

He hadn't been paying attention to her. She'd let go of the bar, and he wasn't there to catch her. She twisted in midair, trying to grab the cutaway. Her reaching fingers closed helplessly on thin air, and she began to fall. 

All at once, he was eight years old again. His mother reached for him, dark curls nested weightlessly around her face for a fraction of a second before she started to fall. Her last word was his name, screamed. 

This wasn't going to happen. He wouldn't _let_ it happen. Gripping the bar, Dick dove, kicking a wide arc. He grabbed the edge of the apron net with one hand, altering his trajectory so that he hit a support beam. He pulled the apron wide, bracing himself so that he didn't get pulled forward when Alyssa hit the net. His shoulders screamed at him, but he ignored the pain. The fire was already roaring, and the screaming of the spectators drowned out his body's complaints. 

"Get out of here! Run!" He bellowed at Alyssa, dropping the rest of the way to the ground. 

_Save them, save them, save them,_ pounded through him with every heartbeat. He had to. Alyssa sprinted for the exits, and Dick ran for the stands. 

The flames themselves were not the only hazard when it came to fires. So often, a large chunk of the deaths came from panic---people rushing to the exits and piling atop any bodies unlucky enough to be caught underfoot and trampled. Cocoanut Grove fire, 1942: the crowd had rushed the front door so desperately, the crushed bodies had blocked the exit. Hartford circus fire, 1944: the dead had been in piles at the congested exits, so some people had flung themselves from the tops of the bleachers and over the side of the tent. When people panicked, they clawed over their fellow man or chose falling to their deaths over burning. Fire brought out the shrieking animal inside a person. 

But Dick's instincts had never been quite right when it came to self-preservation. He ran into the burning seats, zeroed in on three huddled, sobbing children.

"I've gotcha," he told them, picking one up in each arm and kneeling so that the third could cling to his back. He carried them outside, pulled in a couple needy lungfuls of clean air, and then ran back into the flames. 

The smoke was chokingly noxious. By his third trip back inside, his lungs felt scorched and his head swum. It was getting harder, because many of the people still trapped were succumbing to the smoke and passing out. Dead weight was dead weight; carrying them out was difficult. 

The camera tower groaned like a dying thing. Dick more dragged than carried an unconscious man, relying on his gut to point him toward the exit. The ring had turned hellish, flames roaring all around him. So much of the bigtop had been consumed. There wasn't much time. He knew that, in some cold and analytical part of his brain; the voice that reminded him of that fact sounded all too much like the Batman. 

He caught sight of one of the strongmen, Lukask. He was carrying two clowns on his back, but he reached for the man Dick was helping. 

"Go, Dickie! Out!" Lukask bellowed in his thick accent. 

"No! I can---I can still---" Dick shook his head, hard. _"Nobody_ dies tonight! _Nobody!_ Do you understand?" 

Lukask had never seen the Bat in little Dickie Grayson, but he responded to it. He nodded, sweat running down his head and neck in shiny rivulets, and began dragging his impossible burden toward safety. It was a feat of strength, and of heroism. 

The hot, heavy air was difficult to breathe. Dick ignored it, even as his head spun. He had to save them. He had enough time. He knew that he could. He _had_ to. Following the broken, jagged wailing of a trapped man, he found three more people. One of them was trapped by a fallen beam, but the others had simply collapsed. Dick didn't take the time to check if they were alive or dead. They had gotten close to the side of the tent, so he forcibly ripped open the canvas, creating an escape route for them. He lifted the beam off of the man, tuning out his thin litany of _there's no way, no way, no way out_ , and hauled him toward the opening. Pushing him out, he turned for the others. 

The camera tower gave one last inhuman groan before it fell. Dick turned just in time to see the latticed metal structure coming at him. It hit him square in the chest, pinning him on his back and crushing the air out of him. He both felt and heard his ribs crack. Blood and smoke coated the inside of his mouth, and his vision darkened around the edges. 

It was too heavy. He couldn't move it. Nobody could, not even Lukask. Safety was all of two feet away, but he was trapped. Almost giddy from oxygen depravation, a stupid thought bubbled up in his head as he dipped toward unconsciousness: _maybe it's a good thing that Jay didn't come._

Something brushed the side of his face, rough and warm as thick leather. The sensitive end of a trunk snuffled his hair, then snaked around his chest and shoulders. No human would have been able to move the twisted metal husk of the camera tower, but his savior wasn't human. 

Zitka had found him. Kneeling, the elephant had thrust her strong trunk through the hole he'd ripped in the tent, wrapped around him, and dragged him out. Instead of fleeing the fire---and that would have been natural, that was exactly what every other animal had done---she had realized that he was missing and had found him. Dick struggled to breathe, lungs shriveled up tight, and let Zitka snuffle his hair comfortingly. 

It'd started to rain, but that wasn't enough. The firefighters had arrived, but that wasn't enough. Haly's bigtop had burned to the ground, and Dick _knew_ that it was somehow his fault. 

 

*

 

Every arsonist and bomb-maker had their unique style. It wasn't a conscious thing, but intentions and methods spoke to the maker's personality---maybe even to their personal cosmology, if you squinted a little. Leaving stylistic trademarks was risky, so most troublemakers avoided it. But they were all craftsmen, and artists were proud of their work. They had a reason to create, and that showed. Case in point: the Unabomber. A Neo-Luddite, the materials and packaging of his bombs had been a part of his overall message. His primitive homemade bombs had been cased in wooden boxes, hand-crafted. His bombs had been a statement in and of themselves. 

It was an art form, and like any other art, there were two main modes of thought that went into it. There were those who created because they were called to do it---for some higher purpose, to make a statement, or just for the sake of art itself---and there were those who created because it was their job to do so---art by someone else's specifications, efficient and purposeful. 

In terrorism, the latter was more dangerous than the former. Passion and creativity were powerful, but messy. Someone who had been paid to make a bomb was usually a specialist, and they knew better than to leave any room for error. 

The bomb that Jason had found and disabled didn't fit neatly into either category. He puzzled over it for most of the evening, trying to figure out what statement its creator had been trying to make. The streamlined nature and materials made him think that it was a professional job, but it'd lacked any backup. A professional would _never_ do that. So either the person had been an idiot with an ego, or they hadn't wanted to ensure that the bomb would blow. They hadn't been invested in the cause, just the paycheck. Maybe they hadn't wanted to plant it at all. He'd combed every damn inch of the building, but there hadn't been a second bomb.

He had his theories, but he didn't have the time to explore them just yet. Dick would be back soon, and the last thing that he wanted was for him to walk in on him tinkering with a mostly disassembled bomb on the kitchen table. 

Jason had the television on for background noise. He didn't like silence, so even the inane concerns of an alarmist culture was preferable to the quiet. The eleven o'clock news was on, scrolling through the usual top stories. Gang activity, missing children, and heinous deaths, rounded out with some lighthearted puff pieces. The evening news was downright bipolar. The anchors either presented true horrors or embellished imaginary ones, then comforted the audience with dumb stories that some PR firm had fed them. The percentage of news that was actually news---and not the carefully worded pseudonews that'd been bought to air a company in a certain light---was depressingly small. Even more depressingly, most people didn't question what they saw on the news or read in the papers. They took it all at face value.

But when the polished anchorman was cut off mid-sentence, Jason looked up. Breaking news that segued immediately to a commercial break was bullshit, but news that was so important that it cut ahead of the sugary stories was worth listening to. It was too unprepared, too rare, to be fake. 

"More than twenty-three people feared dead and over one hundred seriously injured from a fire that broke out over three hours ago in a crowded circus tent in upstate New York," the anchor said, the botox in his face preventing him from looking properly horrified. "Our own Tina Phillips is…" 

Jason didn't hear the rest past the ringing in his ears. He didn't hear the rest of the report, and he didn't hear the front door open. He didn't even realize that Dick was home until he dropped his motorcycle helmet and shut the door behind him. 

For a moment, Dick stood there in the doorway, his cheeks shiny from tear tracks. His chin trembled, and he sunk to his knees. 

Dick _screamed._ No words, no ranting, no coherency---nothing but the frustration and helplessness and fury and sorrow that he'd undoubtedly been keeping pent up for hours. His voice was stringy and raw, roughened from smoke inhalation.

Jason knelt beside him, and Dick wrapped his arms around him without invitation. He buried his face against his chest, his sobs rickety and hoarse. Jason didn't ask questions or try to shush him---he knew what it was like to be brimming with pain and rage that you didn't know what to do with. The first night after he'd crawled from the Pit, when he'd read the papers and caught up on everything that Bruce _hadn't_ been doing since his death, Jason had screamed and sobbed and destroyed everything around him. He'd smashed every stick of furniture in his hotel room, beat the shit out of the men that'd come to tell him to quiet down, and had only stopped screaming when his voice had disappeared into a broken, croaky whisper. He hadn't felt _better_ afterward, but the awful buildup inside of him had drained enough that it no longer threatened to burst through his pores. 

He held onto Dick until it was out of his system. Eventually, his screaming turned into sobbing, and his sobbing petered off into nothing at all. 

"I heard," Jason told him, when Dick finally quieted down. That was shorthand for _I know, I'm sorry, you don't have to tell me, you don't have to say shit, I know._ He took off his padded gloves and boots, helping him out of his biking jacket. Dick didn't offer him much resistance, or much help. He stared at him blankly with red-rimmed eyes, looking completely drained. His hair smelled like a campfire roast, but Jason knew better than to think it was anything that innocent. 

"C'mon," Jason said, leading his brother to the couch. He just kind of flopped, legs spread and hands folded loosely over his stomach. "You need a drink." 

"I don't---" 

"Not up for discussion," Jason shot over his shoulder as he made a beeline for the kitchen. He'd noticed a couple of bottles pushed in the back of one of the cabinets, dusty and untouched. Pushing aside some forgotten dry goods, Jason found two bottles of booze. One of them was a beautiful bottle of A. H. Hirsch reserve bourbon, embossed with gold foil. The other was a three-quarters full bottle of vodka. He turned it over in his hand to look at the label and frowned deeply.

Whipped cream vodka. 

Leave it to Dick to drink bottom shelf sugary crap while a bottle of fine bourbon whiskey was left untouched in a high cabinet. Jason opened the bourbon, and instantly breathed in Bruce. It was rich and heady, oak and smoke. Eyes closed, Jason remembered being twelve and curious, dipping into the crystal decanter in Bruce's study and licking the sweet-earthy liquor from his fingertips when the master of the house wasn't around. Bruce Wayne rarely drank, but when he did, it was two fingers of bourbon out of that beautiful decanter. 

He poured himself a generous couple of fingers of it and brought the entire bottle of vodka for Dick. He didn't expect him to drink the whole thing---Dick was a lightweight, and the last thing he needed was alcohol poisoning---but he was definitely going to feed him shots until he calmed down some. He had a feeling that Dick was in for some wicked nightmares, but drinking himself to sleep might stave them off for at least one night. 

"Whipped cream vodka?" Jason said incredulously, coming back to the living room with the alcohol. _"Whipped cream vodka?"_

"It tastes good," Dick said defensively, with the bare minimum of a shrug. "Mix it with orange juice and it's like an orange creamsicle." 

Had Dick not been a godawful mess, Jason would have disowned him on the spot. Since he was far from being in a joking mood, he just sighed and slowly shook his head. He'd rib him about his girly drinks and sensitive palate some other time. 

"Were you saving this for a special occasion?" He asked, holding up his glass of bourbon. 

"Not really. It was a gift. I'm not a big fan of whiskey." 

A gift from Bruce, no doubt. Dick kept every gift he received, even if that meant lugging around an unopened bottle of bourbon until he was old and gray. If he got that far.

"This is good stuff," Jason said, holding the glass up to the light. It really did look like precious metal. At over five hundred dollars a pop, it should. Mostly, Jason had opened it out of spite. "Older than either of us. The distillery's been closed since the eighties, so it's a dying breed." 

"How do you know all---" Dick cut himself off, pressing his lips together, hard. The fine muscles in his face trembled. "On second thought, I don't want to know." 

Which was a good choice. Jason didn't want to tell him which one of his trainers had been into fine liquor. Dick had gotten to a point where he didn't question things anymore. It was like he expected the months Jason had spent bonding with mass murderers would dissipate if he ignored them hard enough. The force of Dick's denial was impressive. Jason set the alcohol on the coffee table, then went to get the medical supplies. 

He had been burned. Dick had shiny red welts and fat blisters on his hands and arms, and he hadn't bothered with them before coming back to Blüdhaven. He'd waved off any medical attention, knowing him. He barely responded as Jason slathered ointment on the smaller burns and cleaned and bandaged the larger ones with gauze. It was a strange turnabout, caring for his older brother. Dick had spent weeks tending Jason's wounds without complaint, so it was his turn to reciprocate.

Dick sat still and quiet, his face drawn. Jason almost wished he were still screaming---anything but that eerie, incredibly un-Dick-like calm. He didn't press him, though. If he didn't want to talk, he didn't have to. Sometimes, talking about it was the last thing a person wanted to do. Jason got that. 

He finished with the first aid, wiping his fingers on a dishrag and taking a sip of his bourbon. Then, he opened up the whipped cream vodka and filled a shot glass. He handed it to Dick, who frowned at it for a few seconds before drinking it. Even sweetened, the burn made him scrunch his nose.

"I couldn't save them all," Dick said quietly, setting down the glass.

"I know," Jason said, and poured him another shot. There was no sense in telling Dick that he'd done everything humanly possible, and that he'd saved dozens of lives, or even that doing what he had done had almost cost him his own life. He could point out all the logic and truths in the world, but it wouldn't matter. He hadn't saved everyone, so by the impossible standard set by their mentor, Dick had failed. He wouldn't see it any other way.

"How many?" Dick asked, his brows rucked together.

He didn't have to elaborate on his question. Jason knew exactly what he was asking. As soon as he'd heard the extent of the damage on the news, he'd known that Dick would be devastated. He'd want to know how many people had died. He'd want to know their names, and whether or not they had surviving family. He'd take care of those families. He'd remember their names. That was just what Dick Grayson did. 

Jason shook his head, hard. 

"No."

"Tell me," Dick said, his expression thunderous. "How many? _How many died?"_

"You don't---"

_"Tell me!"_

Jason ran a hand through his hair, agitated. 

"Twenty-three," he said, and the way Dick's eyes widened made him sick to his stomach. "Over a hundred are in critical condition."

Dick took the shot glass from him, hands shaking, and drank the vodka.

"I'll call tomorrow. Have them move most of 'em to Gotham's burn ward. I can pay for it. Whatever care they need." Dick hung his head, a weird hiccuppy noise bubbling up his throat. It was one part mewl, one part sob. Jason couldn't remember ever hearing anything quite so pathetic. He looked _ruined._ "This is my fault."

"Bullshit," Jason growled.

"It _is!"_ Dick shouted, blue eyes electric with misplaced anger. Stupid, heroic Dick was flaying himself on the inside. He was just so damned transparent. "Oleg---Alyssa kept saying that it didn't make sense, kept _insisting_ it was murder, and it was. Someone killed him so that Irving would call me. I'm the only one who could jump in the rigging without any notice. They murdered Oleg so that they could burn down my home while I watched." A shudder ran through him. His throat worked. "While all those innocent people watched. They died because of me."

Jason refilled his shot glass, and when Dick tried to push it away, he gave him a severe look. He picked it up and drank it with a sigh of resignation.

He could have told Dick about the bomb. That would have been the perfect opportunity. There was no doubt in Jason's mind that the two hits were connected. His childhood home hadn't been the only target. It was sheer, mad luck that Jason had saved the apartment building.

But he didn't tell him. He didn't tell him, because Dick was in no shape to know how high the body count should have been. He didn't tell him, because it spoke to a methodical plan to destroy everything that Dick loved. He didn't tell him, because that kind of planning, that kind of passionate hatred, had been expensive.

Jason knew, because he'd almost gone down that road. Revenge was a painstaking, costly business. Dick Grayson didn't have enemies like that, but Nightwing did. So someone with a very black heart and exceptionally deep pockets knew that Dick Grayson and Nightwing were the same person. They knew that he had grown up a circus boy, and that he owned an apartment building.

The list of suspects was very, very short. 

"They died because the world's full of psychos," Jason said, and poured Dick another shot. "What else is new?"

They'd died because a psycho with a grudge wanted to make him suffer, but Jason didn't tell him that. He sipped his bourbon and watched Dick pour himself a shot.

"Slow down, champ," Jason advised, moving the bottle out of his reach. "Pace yourself. I don't want to have to hold your hair back while you yak up shitty booze." 

He wanted him to get good and drunk, but he didn't want him to make himself sick. He was already starting to show signs of wobbliness. 

"When was the last time you ate?" 

Dick picked at the edges of one of his new bandages. He didn't reply. Jason heaved another sigh, getting to his feet and going back to the kitchen. The first carb he saw was a bagel, so he grabbed it. 

"Eat," he instructed, holding the bagel under Dick's nose. He glowered at him until he obediently started taking bites out of it. 

Jason wasn't good at this. He wasn't good at comforting others. He was too used to being the one having the breakdown, not the one trying to prevent someone else from falling apart. Dick was visibly splitting at the seams, and Jason's genius solution was stuffing booze and bagels into him until he saw improvement. Dick leaned his cheek against his shoulder and ate the bagel. He was dead tired, emotionally and physically drained, and the bagel wasn't nearly enough to sop up the shots he'd already downed. On that front, his plan was working well. The alcohol was catching up to him, so he was starting to relax.

Jason put his arm around him. Dick tucked himself into his side, making an ugly choked sound. It took Jason a few moments to realize that he was crying again. 

He wasn't good at dealing with that, either. Jason rubbed his back, feeling him spasm with each sob. What else was he supposed to do? When Dick reached for his half-finished glass of bourbon, Jason let him have it. The booze made him weepy, but that was preferable to anything else. Hopefully, Dick would cry himself out, pass out, and be down for the count for at least six hours. 

By the time he polished off the bourbon, Dick was drunk. His eyelids drooped, shoulders sagging. Jason had never actually seen him drunk before, and he wished that it were under better circumstances. If he were happy, he'd probably be loose and giddy and obnoxious. As messed up as he was, Dick was contact-needy and shaky, a man-sized child desperate for comfort that Jason didn't know how to give him. 

Dick slid his hand under Jason's shirt, palm spread against his stomach.

"You're warm," Dick informed him, voice thick. 

"It's a gift," Jason agreed gamely. "One of my many talents. I make a mean bedwarmer." 

Dick tried to laugh, but it didn't sound right. Not even close. 

"You're…you are. Warm in bed. S'good," he said, patting his stomach under his shirt. "Dunno what I would've done if you weren't…" 

What would he have done if he hadn't been around to catch Dick in freefall? The hypothetical question bothered Jason much more than he thought it would. His brother just didn't do so hot on his own. He was a people person. Going it solo had been one of the worst life decisions that he could have made for himself. 

"I gotcha."

Dick tried to laugh again, but it was all broken up. Jason wished he'd stop. He wished he'd just shut up and go to sleep. He could handle the situation if he didn't have to see the terrible hollowness in Dick's eyes, the reflection of a lifetime of loss brought up to the surface like an oily film. The fire had really gotten to him. It'd hit him deep. He'd been worn out to begin with, so instead of bouncing back with his usual resilience, watching what was essentially his childhood burn to the ground had fractured him.

It made Jason furious. If there was one person alive who didn't deserve this kind of shit, it was Dick. And yet, all he seemed to get was shit piled atop more shit. His infamous optimism had been stretched too thin, and someone had found a way to break it. 

"When you're on the trapeze…" Dick flapped his free hand, squirming so that he could look up at Jason. "…when you're flying with someone---when you catch 'em. You say 'gotcha', so they know. So they know you've got a grip on them." 

Jason squeezed his shoulder. 

"I gotcha," he repeated. 

Dick clumsily got as many of his limbs around Jason as he could. Ever the contact junkie and needier than ever, he held onto him with almost bruising strength. It took some maneuvering, but Jason managed to stand with Dick half-clinging, half-draped all over him. He carried him to the back room and put him to bed. 

But Dick didn't make it easy for him. He refused to let go of him and get under the covers, so Jason had to lay down with him. It took some serious work to get him out of his biking leathers, thanks to Mr. Flexible being nothing but bendy limbs and rubber bones when drunk. He kissed him, sloppy and sticky-sweet from the whipped cream and bourbon, even when Jason groused and tried to get him to lay off. Dick was a damn mess. He was needy without knowing what he wanted.

Eventually, Jason got him undressed and settled. He'd had to lay on his side and hold him to him, spooned up tight against his chest and stomach. It made him sad as hell, seeing his boyscout hero so fucked up. The only thing that'd calmed him down was to hold him so tightly, he couldn't get away if he tried. 

"You're going to sleep," he told Dick, leaning over him to grab the bottle of ibuprofen and half-full glass of tepid water that he'd left out earlier. Dick was going to have a nasty hangover come morning, so some water and ibuprofen before he went to sleep might stave off a bit of it. Jason had to nudge his chin up and hand feed him the pills one by one. Dick gummed his fingertips, sucking lightly. He extricated his fingers, shaking his head. Not the time for that. 

"I'm giving you five minutes to go the fuck to sleep, Big Bird." 

He felt him sigh, low and ragged. 

"Love you, Li'l Wing," Dick mumbled, his eyes already closed. He tucked his head under Jason's chin, warm breath tickling his throat. 

"Yeah, I." Jason struggled with the words for a moment, chasing them around his mouth before he finally said, "Love you, too." 

He doubted that Dick would remember in the morning, but it made him smile faintly before he drifted off. Jason laid with him for a while, his hand on his back. When he felt his breathing even and slow, he carefully got up and started packing. There were probably better ways of handling the situation, but he'd done what he knew how to do. It didn't feel like enough, but he'd tried.

He took an empty dufflebag from the closet and filled it with the list of supplies he'd mentally been compiling since earlier that afternoon. Duct tape, nylon rope, zip ties, and one of Dick's cute little stun guns. He had to work quickly. Dick wouldn't sleep for long, and when he woke up he'd want to start in on puzzling out who'd hurt him, so traveling light was essential. The rest of his materials had been squirreled away over the course of the last two months---7 gauge hypodermic needles, syringes, and a quart of industrial paint thinner. 

The syringes and needles had come from Aaron Helzinger, whom Jason had befriended. Big bad Amygdala was scared of needles, but needed monthly injections to supplement his oral medications. Jason had helped him with that. It'd taken three weeks of palling around with him to win his trust, but it'd paid off. He actually liked the guy, which helped. The paint thinner had come from Dave, the building's super. Dave was good with people, but bad with mechanical things. Jason had done some odd jobs for him, ostensibly because he was on the mend and didn't have much else to do---which, okay, was true. So when he'd mentioned in passing that he needed paint thinner for a project, Dave had hooked him up with some strong stuff. 

A flash of blue on the floor caught in his periphery vision as Jason knelt to zip up the bag. Like a messy five year old, Dick had left his Nightwing costume in a heap on the floor the night before. He'd gotten into the habit of just stripping out of it as soon as he came back from patrol, crawling into bed still sweaty and smelling like the night air. Dick was always wired after patrol, even when he was physically exhausted. Jason had found that he really didn't mind being woken up for early morning sex. He'd been with him long enough to start developing habits. 

Jason picked up the discarded uniform, brushing his fingertips over the blue stripes. He thought about it for a moment, then folded it neatly and put it in the dufflebag. He slung it over his shoulder and left the bedroom, carefully shutting the door behind him. 

Dick's computer was on and humming to itself, as usual. One of the alarms set in the apartment was triggered by sound, and it only kicked in during the hours that Dick usually spent patrolling. Jason didn't know what the exact decibel cutoff was, but he had a feeling that Dick's screaming was more than enough to trigger it. It turned on the cameras, and sent the feed to Oracle. 

"Babsie?" Jason questioned the empty room, glancing at one of the security cameras on the computer desk. "You awake?"

A green light winked at him.

"Unfortunately, yes," the Oracle said through the speakers. She sounded thin and weary. Worried, too. 

"You catch the news tonight?"

"Yes."

She didn't ask how Dick was doing. She knew Dick, so the question wasn't even worth asking. Dick Grayson, Professional Martyr, held himself personally responsible for anything and everything that went wrong around him. 

"I'm going to ask you for a favor," Jason said, very quietly. "But it's not for me."

He knew that Babs was still in love with Dick. He knew that Dick was still in love with her. Dick didn't fall out of love with people, and people never stopped loving him. He was banking on that love, honestly. 

"I'm listening."

"Look away." After a moment, he added, "He's not going to protect himself. You know that he doesn't know how."

Barbara didn't say anything, but the florid security lights flicked off, one by one.


	9. Chapter 9

The botched bombing had been an unfortunate wrinkle in an otherwise productive day. Roland Desmond wasn't surprised that Mouse and Giz had ended up incompetent; he had only himself to blame for relying on such subpar talent. Contracting Firefly had been a wise decision. Really, he should have pulled all of his talent from Gotham's deep pool of candidates. This had been a personal job, an important one, and the risk of attracting the attention of Gotham's meddlesome urban legend would have been worth it.

Especially knowing what he did now. Roland sipped his champagne, the delicate glass dwarfed by his massive fist. All things considered, it had been a richly rewarding day. A celebration was well-deserved. It had taken time to set the board---time and patience. He was in short supply of both, but he'd been determined to do this properly.

Killing the vigilante wasn't enough. He had to suffer. He had to suffer slowly, thoroughly, and on every level. Roland would have to make another pass at the Parkthorne building. He would see to it, even if he had to tear down the place with his bare hands, one brick at a time.

After toasting the evening news, he had decided to take a victory lap of the city. It would be unquestionably his again, and soon---he had given Nightwing no alternatives, nowhere to dig in and lick his wounds. The vigilante would relinquish his influence on Blüdhaven and be punished for what he had done to Roland's mother. Then, he would be able to renew his outward expansion from the 'Haven. 

His trip was cut unexpectedly short, though. Without prompting, the man driving the limousine turned back toward Avalon Hill. The defenses, triggered by the car, folded back like the petals of flowers. Roland growled low in his chest, irritated. He had wanted to loop past the Parkthorne apartments---perhaps to just see, perhaps to make a call. 

"I was not ready to return home, driver."

The driver didn't respond. He'd been blessedly quiet the entire evening, not requiring the conversation and cues that some of his past help had needled him with. 

_"Driver,"_ Roland repeated, letting the growl rise up his throat. 

"Huff and puff all you want, big guy," the man said breezily, turning into the garage. The door closed behind them automatically. "You're done for the night, and I'm the one behind the wheel."

Roland gripped the armrest so tightly, the plastic creaked and warped. 

"You will---"

"No, I won't. Save your breath." He parked, but didn't turn off the car. He unbuckled his seatbelt. "You've got a hell of a setup here. Avalon Hill basically all to yourself, plus a ten-acre firebase surrounding it. Only an idiot would try to fight their way in---an idiot looking to get his hide aerated. But then I realized something. Every time I catch you on film, you've got a new driver. You're awful hard on the help."

They were peons. Easy acquired, easily used, easily replaced. Roland had never been overly concerned with the incompetent vermin he employed. The armaments, guns, and security sweeps had felt like protection enough.

"Don't exactly take the time to learn their names and get to know them, huh? It's a damn shame, Roly. If you'd had a good relationship with your driver, you would've figured out a long time ago that I gave him the night off." 

"I'll kill you," Roland snarled as the driver locked the doors and opened the windows. He left the car running, keys in the ignition. 

"You could try, but I'll bet you'd find that you're feeling kind of floppy. That'd be the odorless gas you've been breathing in all night. I didn't want you to do anything cute like try to fight me in here," the man said, twisting into the backseat. He was a big man, early twenties, but he was a slip when compared to Roland. His face was bare, but he didn't recognize him. He was a new player. "Just relax, ugly. I hear your ticker's bad." 

Roland wanted to push his thumbs into his pale blue eyes, crushing his skull into shards and pulp and stringy black hair between his hands. But his body wasn't responding. He could not move. It was as though his limbs had been filled with cement.

"Y'know, you were an interesting guy to research," the man said, calmly conversational as the garage began to fill with bitter exhaust. "See, I remember when you were just a garden variety dirtbag---when it was your brother Mark that was the muscle. Ah, brothers. What a pain, am I right? The things we do for our brothers, man. Sure, you used him until he got himself _killed_ doing the villain thing, but there might've been some love in there somewhere." 

"Who the hell are you?" Roland ground out through gritted teeth. 

"Good question," his assailant said, pulling a massive syringe from an inside pocket of his leather jacket. "Haven't figured that out yet. It'll come to me eventually."

He turned on the overhead light, holding the wicked needle to the light and tapping it with a gloved fingertip. 

"This might sting a little," the man said with a savage grin, sinking the needle into Roland's neck.

 

*

 

Batman knew that his ward would be on Blüdhaven's rooftops, hellbent on finding out who had contracted Firefly. He arguably knew Dick better than anyone else; he had been a fixture in his life since he'd been just a boy. He was passionate, but when he was incensed, his head stopped ruling his actions. 

He knew exactly how much the circus meant to Dick. Jason's added influence made the situation all the more volatile. He was an incendiary new element, a controlled blaze that threatened to spread if the wind caught. 

He found Nightwing in the Zee Moores, perched on a rooftop above the slums. Batman felt the man's presence before he saw him. It was a cold trickle running down his spine. He shifted his weight, looking for where the shadows didn't quite match up. An angular beam of weak moonlight brushed the slash of blue across his chest.

He knew that it wasn't Dick in the Nightwing suit even before the man stepped into full light. He couldn't say how he knew, because it was the way he moved that cemented his belief. He simply knew. He moved with control, confidence, and precision, but there was a cockiness to his stride, a particular cant to his hips. It wasn't his size that gave him away. It was the loose roll of his shoulders as he straightened. Fearless. Taunting. The way he held himself was a challenge. 

_Jason._

"What do you think you're doing?" Batman asked. 

Jason smiled, all teeth. "Cleaning up."

When the Batman was silent, he added, "I disarmed a bomb in the apartment complex today. Made me a little grumpy, as you might imagine. Heads need kicked in, and Nightwing's not in any shape to do it himself." Jason rolled an escrima stick over in his palm before returning it to the holster on his back. "So I'm subbing for the night."

Bruce Wayne's battered heart ached. 

"You're healing." 

It was a statement, a question, and a rebuke, all rolled into one. _You're healing from your injury. Are you healed enough to do this? You're gambling your life and this mission if you're going back on the street half-cocked._

"I'm healed." Jason patted his stomach. "Okay, so I'm not in the shape I was when still in possession of a spleen, but that's not going to slow me down. No better way than to burn off some post-op pounds than to kick some bad guy butt, yeah?" 

"You're taking a risk," he said, forcing himself to keep a neutral stance. 

"Don't we always?" His upper lip curled. "Look, I'm not asking for your permission. You gonna try to stop me?" 

"No." 

"Huh." Jason planted his hands on his hips, leaning back to look at him better "Then what now?"

Batman took a risk of his own. 

"We'd get more accomplished together."

Jason's head jerked up like an electric current had surged through him. 

"Goodness gracious, you aren't trying to instigate a _team up_ , are you?" He crowed with laughter, slapping his knee. "You are! You me, and all the justicing we can get in by sunrise. Just like old times." 

The old times. The good times. There had been good times. Making him his Robin hadn't just been an attempt to siphon his volatile emotions into something constructive. Because it hadn't always been about putting Jason on the right path, or putting his remains in the ground, or putting his guilt in a glass case. Bruce had put him in the yellow capelet and wanted him there because with him, he'd been better. Not more efficient, but lighter. Clearer. He was aware of his Robins, always---they brought him focus.

Jason seemed to consider it for an overlong moment, head bowed. 

"My next stop's a watering hole," Jason said, finally. "The Good Ol' Boys bar. I'm looking for the Trigger Twins, so bringing you along would only make it fair. Two on two, right?" 

Tad and Tom Trigger. Expert marksmen and hired hitmen. Tim had last encountered them in Gotham some months ago, but they had taken up semi-permanent residence in Blüdhaven. They were more or less Nightwing's rogues, now. Everyone connected to Blockbuster was his enemy by default. 

"Blockbuster's muscle?" 

"What's left of it. I've already had words with everyone else cozied up in Blockbuster's pocket." 

Jason's decision to wear the Nightwing costume made sense, then. This was an intimidation run. He wanted it known that Nightwing wasn't someone to trifle with, and that working with Blockbuster could be a very real health hazard. The boy had always understood the power of fear, and what one was capable of when they had no fear whatsoever.

"Take point." 

He moved with alien grace, light-footed agility belied by his obvious strength. When he had been his Robin, Jason had moved as he'd been taught: namely, he'd moved like Dick. Batman had pushed him to that, he knew. It was not a mistake that he had repeated with Tim, but it still stood as a mistake. He had been looking for a replacement without recognizing that Jason and Dick were very different boys. Different then, different now.

He didn't know what kind of man he'd grown up to be. But he was still proud of him. Regardless of his intuition and fears, Bruce watched his son and was proud. The irrationality of it all was not lost on him.

The Good Ol' Boys bar was near Baily church---one of the oldest sections of town. The streets in that area were all switchbacks, so the rooftops were both the best vantage point and the quickest mode of transportation. Batman signaled him to pause and hold on a rooftop across the street from the bar. 

A black S.U.V. with bull horns affixed to the hood was parked out front. The Trigger Twins were there. But unfortunately, the bar was a popular locale, so an all-out brawl would accrue an unacceptable amount of human collateral damage. They had to be patient. They had to wait. 

"C'mon, fucksticks," Jason muttered under his breath, shifting his weight. "Leave already. This suit's riding something fierce."

"Language, Robin."

Jason froze. So did Bruce. Air hovered in his lungs until it staled. It had been a mistake. He could attribute it to the memories that fanned over his movements, the superimposed images of the little boy he'd had to bury. It'd been a reflexive response. Jason had a unique infectiousness; his emotions caught and carried around him. Jason was remembering the past, and it surfaced in the way that he moved at his side. Batman had merely fallen into step.

"Yessir," Jason said, with the same insincerity and amusement that he'd used when his dark, curly head had only come up to the middle of Bruce's chest. "But I'm not waiting around while they get their drink on." 

"I'll take the entrance. You round to the back and take the southwest corner of the building." 

"Flush him to the bathroom?" 

Batman nodded. "Close quarters. No easy exit. It'll mitigate the involvement of bystanders." 

"And the clean up for the janitors once we scare the shit out of them," Jason agreed, already dropping down the fire escape and sliding into the shadows. 

It was a simple maneuver---one that they had used countless times in the past. When most offenders saw the Batman enter a room, they scattered. He used this to his advantage, letting his partner secure the exit. He had to trust that he would hold his ground and be prepared. If not, the move could end in the perp's escape. 

The Batman walked into the bar. If the Batcave was tailored to the theme his life had chosen, the Good Ol' Boys Bar was meant to reflect the pseudo-Western lawlessness that the Trigger Twins surrounded themselves with. The wooden bar counter was scuffed, the air choked with cigarette smoke, and lurid neon signs buzzed behind the bottom-shelf liquor. 

Someone dropped their beer with a shatter of glass, barely audible over the honky-tonk wailing of the jukebox. Batman ignored the guilty-wide eyes, the surety of sin in half of the patrons avoiding his shadow, because he was there for only two of them. If he had come to cut out all of the rot in Blüdhaven, it would have taken him significantly longer than one night. He'd been watching Dick try to do that very thing for months, with precious little forward momentum. 

Tad Trigger didn't stand out as much against this backdrop than on Blüdhaven's streets; he was still theatrically overdressed, a cowboy in boots that had never seen a stall mucking. Tad---an alias; Thaddeus Winston had assumed the name when he'd crossed paths with the eerily similar Thomas Duane---sloshed his beer on himself as he stood, swore, and stumbled all at once. His body tensed with the desire to run, the flight response of a cornered animal, but running would confirm his guilt.

So Tad cowered. His thin lips pulled from his bleached teeth in a pitiful sneer. 

"Wha---what in the blue hell are _you_ doin' here? I ain't done nothing!" Tad grabbed the wrist of the closest person---a woman with a hairspray-stiff froth of peroxide-blond hair---and shook her. She screamed. "Ask her---ask anyone! We've been here all night!" 

"Don't waste my time," Batman said, still walking calmly toward the Trigger Twin. 

A scream ripped from the bathroom. 

_"TAD! HELP!"_

In a rare show of camaraderie---pseudo-brotherly devotion, protectiveness, instinct---Tad let go of the woman and ran for the bathroom. 

Tad ran through the door marked _Stallions_ and right into Jason. Though he didn't see it, Batman heard the flat smack of fists and flesh colliding. 

"Call EMS," Batman instructed the woman, following Tad. 

They'd done this maneuver so many times. They'd done it the first night Batman had formally taken his second Robin into the field. It'd been an opportunity for the boy to prove himself, and he had---by the time he'd rejoined him, Jason had knocked the man out and zip-tied his hands together. He'd been sitting cross-legged on the man's back, his grin wide and brazen.

This time, Jason was kneeling on the floor, straddling Tad. He didn't acknowledge Batman's presence; he wasn't looking for his approval. 

He knew he would not have gotten it. 

"You thought that the guy in the stupid mask and spandex was an easy target, right? Easy mistake to make." Jason hit him again. "I know." And again. "But hey---" Again. "---you and your _'brother'_ play dress-up every night, too." Tad scrabbled at his face, desperately trying to go for his eyes. "Difference is, when I play dress-up, I play to _win."_ Jason jerked him up by his fistful of bloodstained shirt, then smashed Tad's head back down into the tile. "And tonight, buddy, I'm dressed for justice." 

Jason was a talker. That had not changed at all. He was a different kind of talker than Dick, though---Dick talked because it was what came natural to him. He kept a running dialogue with his audience, whoever they happened to be. Jason used communication as a weapon. Effortlessly and effectively, too. He'd figured out why Batman had never silenced his Robins, and as an adult, he was using it to his own advantage. So many of the tools that Jason used with brutal efficiency were ones that Bruce had given him.

Jason wasn't holding back. The rhinestone cowboy wasn't moving. Jason wasn't stopping.

The sounds of impact were wet.

"Stand down! Stand _down!"_

Batman's roar was the kind of command that made most men spontaneously lose control of their bowels, but Jason didn't so much as flinch. He didn't look at Batman---didn't break eye contact with Tad. The cowboy's face was already swelling up, misshapen and mottled. 

"Enough," Batman snarled. 

Finally, Jason let go. He got up and took a step back, hands raised and spread as if to say _what, me? I'm not doing anything._

Tad spat blood, saliva, and teeth. 

"I'd tell you to stay out of trouble and have a nice night, boys, but I got a feeling _ya'll_ have other plans," Jason said, stepping over the crumpled meat of the other unconscious Trigger Twin. 

The few bar patrons brave, stupid, or drunk enough to have stayed through the fight got well out of their way as they left. The smog and stink of the petrochemical plants smothering the rooftops seemed harder to breathe than when they'd entered the bar. An ambulance and squad cars howled in the distance. 

"That was excessive," Batman said, hands fisted in his cape, hard. His gloves creaked. "They weren't involved with the strike against Haly's." 

"They worked for Blockbuster. In my book, that sure as spit means that they're culpable," he said mulishly. "They deserve worse."

"Not our call." 

Jason whirled on his heel, drawing up like he half had to restrain himself from lashing out. He paused, hands clenched, then abruptly relaxed. He smiled.

"Not our call," he repeated, arms and blue-black fingers spread like a stage performer appealing to the furthest row in the house. "Not _our_ call. We'll leave that to a rigged jury and a hung judge. The money and corruption will make the call, as usual."

"We don't decide who lives and dies." 

"Yeah, we do. We do make the decision. I did." Jason's eyes were fever-bright. "I mean, you found the _bomb,_ didn't you?"

Batman stopped. Two years ago. Lead azide and RDX, eight inches behind the back left tire of the Batmobile. Primed, but not tripped.

"It would've blown you to high holy hell," he said, sounding bizarrely proud. "Bet it put the fear of God into you. Bet you wondered who had figured out how to get that close to your wheels. Bet it just killed you."

He had spent over eighty hours straight awake after finding it beneath the Batmobile. Eighty hours spent trying to understand how the security had been breached. When he'd found no answers, he had retired that car and designed another. Each piece had been purchased through a new shell, from a new source---since he had been unable to find the nick in his armor, every variable had to be eliminated. Still, he'd wondered. Unanswered questions always lingered in his mind like ghosts. That one had been particularly haunting. 

"But you didn't follow through with it." 

"I decided that you weren't going to die _that_ way."

Batman had to take that knowledge, that confirmation, and set it away. He couldn't touch it right at that moment. The precision and viciousness of the bomb had been appalling at the time, and now that he knew what had been behind that meticulous fury---the reasons, the ideology, the hands---it might as well have detonated. The truth was devastating, so he put it away. 

"Do you hate me that much?" 

"Yes." Jason looked away, finally. His cheek bulged and flexed as he clenched his teeth, then spat, "No. I don't know. I couldn't---I _can't_ forgive you for letting him go free. I should've been the last one, Bruce. I should've been the last kid that maniac murdered." 

"You're not wrong. I've thought about it. Dreamt about it." Bruce admitted. He had to pull the words from somewhere deep, but they came. "But I can't cross that line." 

"Save it. I've already heard the spiel from your biggest fan," Jason said dismissively, as if he didn't want to continue that line of thought. From what he had gathered from the faint blood trail Talia had left, Jason had been seeking out the arts that Batman had deliberately censored during their training. The clash of philosophies had been one that he'd anticipated---the conversation had started when Jason had been just a boy, but they'd never come to an understanding. That avoidance didn't line up with what Dick, Barbara, and Cassandra had told him in their debriefs. 

It clicked. 

"You've already done it." 

"I told you. All I'm doing is cleaning up what's left." Jason caught his gaze again. He held it. "I've forgiven you, but the question is, are you going to forgive me? 'Cause I'll be honest, father. I've _sinned."_

He didn't know if he had called him father sarcastically. His voice was too low, too even, too untraceably calm. 

Bruce was at a loss. 

"That's contingent on whether or not you're asking for forgiveness." 

"I'm not sure yet. I'm not sure I won't do it again, if it needs to be done. Like you said---once you cross that line, you don't go back." The look he shot him was withering. "Unless you're Green Arrow. Or the Flash. Or Green Lantern."

He took a chance. To address this issue, even obliquely, was a risk. Batman hadn't decided if it was better to ignore it, or to acknowledge to them that he knew. 

"If you continue to stay here, in his city, he'll expect you to keep your hands clean. To do otherwise would…jeopardize things." 

Jason tensed. It was vague enough to allow him the wiggle room of deniability. 

"You haven't seen him. He was going to get himself killed. I know he'll probably hate me for fighting his battles for him, but I'd…" Jason huffed a sigh that ruffled his particolored bangs. His voice dipped low enough that Bruce couldn't be a hundred percent sure that he'd heard him correctly. "…like fuck'm I going to make him a martyr on my journey toward 'redemption'." 

"I've been monitoring his deteriorating state."

"Then what were you waiting for? For Meatslab McMuttonchops to grind a few lessons into him? Well, screw that. If it's him. Or if it's you. I will stop at nothing." 

That threat hung in the air like the smell of sulfur. Jason's fuse had been lit. Bruce could hear it. His voice was climbing in volume, each word hard and fast. He spoke like that when he was excited---when he was telling a story, animated and laughing---and when he was two breaths shy of screaming. That hadn't changed. 

"You'll have to stop me yourself," Jason informed him with a sharp laugh. "Hell, you'll probably have to kill me!"

Batman stilled his breathing. Controlled it.

"You know that I won't do that." 

"Even the dress-ups know that. I'm never going to forgive you for letting the Joker live. Dick's never going to forgive me." His voice evened. Calmed. "And we're all going to have to _live_ with that. I think I can. How about you?" 

It was a challenge. 

"I'm not sure yet." 

There were so many things that he wanted to say to him. He had practiced his apologies with the empty suit in the memorial case for years, but now that Jason stood before him in the flesh, the words wouldn't come.

"You're never going to get rid of me, Bruce," Jason told him. "You're never going to outrun me. Maybe this'll be the night that you decide that I came back damaged and you never want to see me again---and knowing you, you never will. But even if I'm not around, I'll haunt you. You can't fix what happened, and you refuse to make it right. So it---the knowing, the knowing that you fucked up---it'll eat you up. You'll never get rid of it. Of _me."_

Jason lifted his chin defiantly. The shadows hollowed his cheekbones and made his eyes glint, sharp and bright and lethal. 

"But this thing I did here tonight, it's not about you. It's about him, and it's about me, and it's about me not being you, and mostly, it's about him being better than either of us." 

His lungs felt scorched. Bruce exhaled slowly and carefully. Searing-hot emotion boiled up the back of his throat, but he kept ruthlessly contained. He breathed. He kept his heart steady; he made himself cool. 

"I want you to think about the situation that you're putting him in," Batman said, refusing to engage. "The captain knows his identity."

"Nothing will stick. She won't be able to pin anything on anyone." He smiled, teeth in the dark. "You taught me better than that. So if you want me to go to jail, you're going to have to do the deed yourself, boss. We both know that you can build a case and wrap it up all pretty for the police. But if you do that, we're done. _I'm_ done."

The size of the boy was startling, some detached part of Batman marveled. Jason probably hadn't finished growing, yet he already looked him straight in the eye. He was a man. He was a stranger. He was his son. Bruce hadn't prepared for this. 

"Choice time. This is where you make the call, Bruce. This is where you decide if due process really is your God." 

Next time, he would follow through with his plans. That was what Jason was saying, in full disclosure and complete honesty. Jason used the truth with vicious finesse. He didn't need to apply a lie to cut someone to the bone. 

"If you want to do the right thing," Batman said, glancing away. "You'll turn yourself in." 

"I _did_ the right thing."

In the space of a blink, Jason disappeared. 

And Bruce let him go. 

 

*

 

When Dick woke up, it was to the most horrific hangover he'd suffered in recent memory. Combined with the deep bruising from the camera tower hitting him, the various degrees of burns on his hands and arms, and the soreness of his smoke-and-screaming roughened throat, he felt like hell. The light coming in through the blinds needled his dry, itchy eyes. He rubbed his face, groaning low in his chest. The headache alone was enough to remind him why he didn't drink very often. As per the endless irony of the universe, the whipped cream vodka hangover headache wasn't any kinder than the headaches regular vodka gave him. 

But he wasn't alone, at least. Jason was asleep beside him, his thick arm draped over his side.

Dick closed his eyes. He didn't want to move. He didn't want to make the calls to Haly's and the hospital. He didn't want to know how many of his friends hadn't made it through the night. He didn't want to hear what Bruce would have to say about this massive failure. He didn't know if he was capable of facing the world just yet. There were so many arrangements to be made---for rebuilding, for funding, for media questions, for damage control, for finances, for bills, for funerals. 

He hurt. Physically, mentally, emotionally. He ached.

How was he going to begin to make this mess right? Where would he start?

Finding Firefly was the first step. He had to be brought to justice---had to pay for what he'd done. Bruce had probably started that search himself, knowing him.

Bruce would handle it. He always did.

"Stop it," Jason growled. He dragged him closer, pulling Dick flush against him. It was more comforting than Dick would tell him. It was rare that he was the one that got held, not the one doing the holding. Physically, Jason had grown into a big man. Dick hugged Jason's arm to him, drawing up his knees and shrinking into the comfortable warm cove of his body.

"What?" Dick croaked. He'd really done a number on his vocal cords.

"Stop beating yourself up."

Dick grumbled low in his sore throat. "That obvious?"

"Yeah. So quit it. I know this might come as a shocker, but you're not going it alone." Jason gave a warm, sour sigh. "B came up from Gotham to help and everything."

Dick rolled over to face him, eyes widening. Jason had the kind of tired lines around his eyes and mouth that said he hadn't slept for more than an hour, tops. He had an open cut across his cheekbone that hadn't been there when Dick had fallen asleep.

He'd scuffled. With whom, Dick was almost afraid to ask. 

"Did you...you and Bruce...?"

"Later," Jason said dismissively, reaching over him and grabbing the ibuprofen bottle and a half-full glass of water. "Rehydrate and take your vitamins."

"What did you do?"

Jason stretched out on his back, looking up at the ceiling with a sigh. He licked his thumb, gingerly rubbing at the cut on his cheek. He winced with a hiss. That didn't surprise Dick, because it looked like it should have been stitched up---and messing with the thin layer of scab tissue was clearly a bad idea. But Jason prodded the wound again, just for good measure, because that was the way he was. 

His hesitance made him seem almost young. He was stalling. Dick squirmed. 

_"Jason."_

"Look. Your big-top wasn't the only target. There was a bomb planted here, too. I found and disabled it, but that was dumb luck. If I hadn't been here, well." Jason glanced over at him, finally. He'd reopened the cut. A fat red bead of blood welled up, then trickled down into his stubble. Jason smeared at it distractedly with his right hand. "You wouldn't have had anywhere to come home to."

Dick couldn't breathe. Jason kept going.

"And that made me realize that someone had figured out your secret ID. Dick Grayson doesn't have any enemies like that. None that mean and connected, at least. So after I got your drunk ass tucked in, I went calling." Jason shrugged, tucking his arms behind his head. "Ran into Bruce along the way. He helped me finish up. And that's what happened, Officer."

That wasn't an answer. Not to the question that Dick had been trying to ask. 

"Jason. What did you _do?"_

"I made damn sure that everyone in this town knows that working with dirtbags is bad for their health," he said, smirking.

Dick pushed himself up. His neck ached and his head felt roughly thirty pounds too heavy. He instantly regretted moving. 

"You and Bruce worked together?" 

"Just like old times," Jason confirmed with a nod. He needled Dick with a sharp look, wrapping a hand around his wrist and tugging him back down. "You're in no shape to flit around, Dickiebird. You can't do shit for the world when you're a sneeze away from keeling over. I know that dear old Dad didn't have a merit badge for self-preservation, but work with me here."

Dick let Jason drag him back to bed. It wasn't the full story, his gut said. Not anywhere near it. But the truth of the matter was that Jason was dodging his question, he hurt on every conceivable level, and he just didn't have it in him to pick that fight. If Bruce worked with him---if Bruce let him out in the field, finally---that was good. That was progress. 

He needed to believe that he'd made some progress with at least one of the terminal cases he'd been nursing. Everything else Dick had touched in Blüdhaven had either fired him, failed, or been reduced to ashes. He was just so tired. That was human. He was human. 

But Dick knew that Bruce wouldn't have let any of this happen. In fact, he'd come up from Gotham because he'd seen exactly how much Dick couldn't handle it on his own. 

"Stop it," Jason grumbled again, pulling him in. 

Dick traced the bristle of stubble down the line of Jason's jaw. He tangled his legs with his, his thigh pushed between his knees. Jason huffed a soft groan. 

"You…sure you…?" 

"Please, I just---please," Dick mumbled, touching the side of his neck. Jason opened his mouth to protest, but he kissed him again, rolling his hips against him. 

 

*

 

The first week after the fire was one of the hardest in Dick's life. He'd known that he would have to make arrangements for people to be moved, friends to be be buried, finances to be shifted, and damages to be addressed, but he couldn't have possibly anticipated how difficult it all would be. Most of the calls had to be made by him, so it wasn't like Jason could help.

But Jason did what he could. He gave him privacy when he needed to take the truly hard calls---Lukask had hung on for two days before passing away; most of their big cats had been burned alive in their cages, and Zitka was showing signs of breathing problems---and was within reach when he needed support. Jason put food in front of him when he forgot to eat, herded him to bed when he refused to sleep, held him steady throughout the day, and held him down when he thrashed at night. Once again, their roles had reversed. 

Jason didn't take care of people the way that Dick did. Dick pestered and checked in constantly, asking what they needed and giving them more than they asked for. Jason just _did_ things. He didn't say much. He didn't ever ask him if he was okay. He just made sure that Dick's needs were met, anticipating problems before they arose and then taking care of it himself. He knew that was how he worked---knew that that was just _Jason_ \---so a part of him _knew_. 

The confirmation came a week and a half after the fire. He found Amy waiting in front of the apartment door when he got back from a trip to the grocery store. In a rare show of tiredness, she sagged in on herself, her hands tucked against her sides. As soon as she saw Dick, she squared her shoulders and straightened. 

She wasted no time at all, answering his "Hi, Amy," with a brisk, "Grayson, we need to talk." 

Dick blinked rapidly. He tried to smile, but he could feel it wobble. He really, really didn't want to talk. 

"I---what about?" 

"Roland Desmond is dead."

He'd always wondered what it would be like to hear those words. He didn't believe in celebrating death, even when it was the death of someone who was unquestionably _bad_. He couldn't help the relief, though. There was a part of him that was selfishly, wrathfully glad. It was an ugly, complicated feeling. 

"Suicide, officially," Amy continued, crossing her arms over her chest. "CO intoxication. He was found in his car. We've been able to keep it out of the news so far, but it won't last."

This was not a conversation to have in the hallway. 

Dick shifted the grocery bags clumsily in his arms until he could get his keys out of his pocket and the door unlocked and opened. Amy followed him inside.

"You said 'officially'," Dick said as soon as he pushed the door closed with his foot. "You don't buy it?" 

Amy arched an eyebrow at him. "Did he ever strike you as the suicidal type?"

"No," Dick admitted, setting the grocery bags on the counter. "But…" 

"The ME was hesitant to put it in his report because it's just…he's never seen anything like it. But he thinks that Desmond may have been injected with methylene chloride. He found a needle puncture wound in his neck."

Methylene chloride? That was a new one by him. 

"Walk me through it."

"It's a highly volatile liquid. The liver converts it to carbon monoxide, starving the body for oxygen. It's particularly dangerous for people who have preexisting heart conditions, and---"

"And Roly's heart was enlarged," Dick added, thinking of the sticky note he'd added to Blockbuster's file after the infraction with Clark. "I know." 

The look that Amy shot him was one that Dick recognized all too well from Alfred---exasperated and long-suffering, like she didn't know whether to scold him or praise him.

"I'm not going to ask you how you know that." 

"Good, because I'd tell you _Superman,_ and I don't know if you'd believe that or not." 

Amy shook her head. "You're the real deal, kid." 

"Enough about me and my fine flying friends from another planet," Dick said, leaning against the counter and giving her his best boyscout smile. It took effort. "How would our guy have gotten his hands on enough methylene chloride to pull this thing off?"

"He wouldn't have needed much. Even more unfortunately, he wouldn't have had much trouble getting it. It's in metal degreasers, some pesticides, and industrial paint thinner."

Dick's heart sank into the pit of his stomach. Hadn't Dave asked him how Jason's little 'renovation project' was going just last week? 

"…you think that someone staged this to look like a suicide?" 

"They didn't have to try very hard. No one is willing to turn this into a murder investigation. Nobody even bothered to pretend to cry over Desmond punching his ticket."

Fair enough. But a murder was a murder. The victim's karma balance didn't matter.

"So why bring it to me?" 

He was surprised by the brief bloom of guilt in her eyes. 

"I thought---briefly---that it might have been you. You have history with Desmond." 

"But you don't think it's me now?" 

"No. Because you're a good kid, and..." Amy sighed, massaging a stress knot between her neck and shoulder. "...whoever killed Roland Desmond was a sadist. Methylene chloride _burns._ Horrifically. I can't even imagine what it would feel if it were injected without heavy sedation. I've never heard of someone doing that."

Dick's fingers tightened on the edge of the kitchen counter until his knuckles ached. 

"Thank you," he said, still smiling. "For the information, I mean. If I find anything, I'll tell you."

It was a lie. He hated to lie to her, but Jason was his responsibility. No matter what. If he'd made a mess trying to take care of him, Dick had to be the one to clean it up.

 

*

 

Jason had been asleep when he'd left for the grocery store. He'd been sleeping peacefully, so Dick had crept out to run some errands while he napped. Not long after Amy left, he padded out of the bedroom, yawning widely. Jason made a beeline for the kitchen, as usual. Dick sat on the couch with the newspaper and tried to read the front page article for what felt like the hundredth time.

"Did you forget about the groceries? The ice cream's melted through the bag. We've got a Neapolitanpocalypse going on in here. Seriously, Dick." Jason popped his head around the corner, bemused. "Dick?"

Dick held up the newspaper. He hadn't been keeping up on the happenings of the world outside of his personal meltdown. He'd found the week-old paper in the recycle bin, the incriminating headline buried under takeout boxes. He had a feeling that Jason hadn't wanted him to read it.

 _'Haven Hospital Brimming with Baddies_ the block type screamed. 

"We need to talk about this. About Blockbuster." 

Jason's expression hardened. 

"Ask yourself how bad you really want to know," he said, and Dick knew it was a warning.

In one night, Jason had single-handedly taken apart every rogue working for Blockbuster. Dick had put that information into his hands. For weeks, Jason had recorded everything that he knew about his enemies. When the opportunity had presented itself, he'd put the knowledge to good use. He'd taken care of it. That was how he worked. 

"They won't be able to prove anything, will they?" Dick asked, though he knew the answer already. 

"What do you think?"

Dick rubbed a tired hand over his eyes. "I don't know _what_ to think right now, Jay."

"I think your problem took care of itself. Nobody else will get hurt," Jason said, placating. "Don't try to tell me that the 'Haven isn't better off for it."

He wasn't wrong. He wasn't right, but he wasn't wrong. Dick had no idea what to say. 

So he reached up and combed back the white streak in his hair with his fingertips. He pressed a kiss to his forehead. 

_"Te aves yertime mander tai te yertil tut o Del."_

_I forgive you, and may God forgive you as I do._

His father had said that to him every time he'd caught Dick doing something he shouldn't have. It was the truest way he had to express forgiveness. There was a ritual to it. He doubted that Jason knew what the words meant, but he felt it. He closed his eyes, sighing. Jason had been waiting for his forgiveness. Dick could see that now. 

But it was just that: a ritual, for Jason's sake. He had killed a man for him, and Dick couldn't let that go easily. Forgiving and forgetting were entirely different things.

Because it was his fault. If he'd taken care of the Blockbuster situation, if he'd just---if he'd done what _Bruce_ would have done, if he'd listened to his advice---Jason wouldn't have felt compelled to solve the problem for him. That blood was on his hands, too. The guilt coiled up behind his ribcage, tightening his throat. He'd pushed Jason to it. His fault. 

Dick kissed his forehead, and his cheek, and his mouth. He wrestled his jacket off. He palmed him through his jeans, feeling his cock twitch and start to stiffen. He was halfway through unbuttoning his fly when Jason grabbed his wrist.

"What're you doing?" Jason asked, his voice tight. 

Dick didn't answer. Wasn't it obvious? He curled a hand around the back of Jason's neck and pulled him closer, kissing him hard. They were back to square one, kissing with teeth. 

Jason jerked back, turning his face away. "No." 

"No?" Dick repeated, baffled. 

"No. We're not doing this." 

"What are you---"

"You're fucked up. We're not doing it when you're in a bad place. I don't do that."

"I'm fine," Dick insisted, but that just seemed to make Jason angrier. 

"No, you aren't. I'm not going to let you---what---punish yourself? That's what you're doing, aren't you." Jason's voice hiked, louder and higher. Just loud enough ring in Dick's ears, but not loud enough to be heard past the soundproofing. Jason had tested his boundaries thoroughly. "That's what this was, wasn't it? Fuck that. Fuck _you."_

Jason planted both hands on Dick's chest and shoved him away. Hard. He didn't expect the shove, nor the shocking strength behind it, so Dick staggered backward.

He lit up. 

"I did you a favor," Jason said, furious. "Nightwing's rogues are scared shitless, now. The ones that aren't shitting in bags for the foreseeable future, I mean. From now on, this town will respect you. You didn't have to get your hands dirty." 

"I was _earning_ that respect," Dick insisted, heat tightening his throat at the savage picture Jason had painted. He'd fought angry, so he'd used excessive force. But would he have shown restraint if he'd gotten to his rogues before Jason? Could Dick say for sure that he would have been any better if he'd been wearing the suit? "I was making Blüdhaven mine. My way." 

"Your way wasn't working." 

"But you murdered a man! That's---it's unacceptable."

"I killed," Jason said, a finger raised. "An important difference in etymology, see. And it's not a first for me. You know that." 

As much as he'd tried to ignore it, Dick did. 

"I thought that you wanted to change." 

"I never agreed to be your fucking pet project." After a beat, he added, "Muttonchops was on his way out anyway." 

"That doesn't make it better!" Dick snapped, feeling his nerves roil and seethe. "That doesn't excuse it!"

"He wasn't going to stop until everything around you was dead," Jason said angrily, shoving him again. It was like he wanted a fistfight. A physical fight would have been less painful. "First your circus, then your apartment building---where do you think that would've ended? Babs' Clock Tower? Wayne Manor? He wouldn't have stopped until your life was shit and shambles. I wasn't going to sit here with my thumb up my ass and _watch it happen!"_

"So you should have taken him to the police and---" Dick shouted back, sick that he had to explain this to him. This was rule number one. This had always been rule number one. They didn't---couldn't---kill.

"---And watch him walk?" Jason interrupted, talking over him. "Yeah, no. Hate me for it if you want to, but I'm not going to watch you get yourself killed because you still haven't figured out how the real world works!" 

"What, just because I wasn't working th---"

Instead of giving him a shushing finger, Jason clamped his entire hand over his mouth.

"You think long and hard about how you want to finish that sentence, Dickie," Jason hissed. 

There was something in his voice, something in his eyes, that was utterly _Batman_. The Robin in Dick reacted accordingly. He backed down. He had to. 

"I need some air," was all that Dick said, jerking away. He didn't grab his coat, or even lace his boots up all the way. He needed out. Needed to breathe. 

And Jason let him go. 

 

* 

 

Dick sat on the roof of the apartment building until his fingers went numb and his cheeks and nose tingled from the windchill. October in the 'Haven was bitterly cold, but Dick couldn't let himself go back downstairs until he'd settled down. He wouldn't be able to handle the situation properly until he got a hold of himself. He didn't hate Jason for what he'd done, but he hated that he'd done it.

The worst part of the whole thing was that Jason had been trying to do the right thing. That was the kicker---the punchline. He'd been trying to help. Blockbuster cracking the Bat identity code would have spelled disaster for more lives than just Dick's, so Jason had intervened in the most effective way possible. 

Dick wasn't out there for more than half an hour, but by the time he decided to go in, thaw, and apologize, Jason was gone. Every trace of him---from his clothes to his weapons and back again---had been scrubbed clean from Dick's apartment. He'd even gotten his guns out of the safe, though he shouldn't have been able to crack it. Jason hadn't shown him all of his tricks. He'd always been prepared to leave.

It was a gutpunch, how easily and quickly he'd pulled up roots and vanished. He should've expected it---should've known that the moment he made him feel like he didn't want him there, he'd disappear again. The enormity of his mistake swelled in his throat. Dick had pushed the wrong buttons. 

Jason had left just one thing behind, Dick realized as he glanced into the hideyhole bedroom. There was an envelope on the dresser. It was fat with wrinkled ones and twenties, sour with the stink of lighter fluid. 

The bills were the sum total of half of the rent for the duration of Jason's stay. He'd deliberately chosen not to leave a note, because an unmarked envelope full of gummy cash left on a dresser meant a whole host of nasty things. He knew that Dick didn't need or want his money, so he was making a point by giving it to him. By paying him, he was putting a price on the time they'd had together.

It was in Jason's nature to escalate; when he took a hit, he immediately hit back, harder. This was his parting shot. 

Jason wouldn't be coming back. 

 

*

One year later:

 

*

For the first time in his life, Dick's body wasn't listening to him. His limbs were like unruly children. Sometimes they listened to his brain, and sometimes the simplest of commands were met by catastrophic failure and mutiny. It was a new running theme in his life: absolute, all-encompassing failure.

It'd started with Jason. He'd been so sure that he'd hit rock bottom the night Jason disappeared again---like he had never been there, like he hadn't been so close to being something permanent---but that had just been the prelude. After that, a gang war broke out in Gotham and another Robin died. After that, Blüdhaven was all but leveled by Chemo. After that, he'd taken a shot to the chest that had taken him out of the action for over a year---a shot meant for Bruce, a shot that, all things considered, should have killed him.

Instead, it'd fried his nervous system. Dick had been forced to start over, retraining his body to make connections. That was easier said than done. Especially since he hadn't felt particularly connected to anyone for a long time. Saving Bruce had been pure reflex---he'd told himself that he'd die for him, and really, he'd given it his level best. When Chemo had dropped on Blüdhaven, his shameful first thought hadn't been for all of the innocent, faceless people there. His first thought had been Jason. 

He didn't know if he'd left town. No one had seen him since the night he'd left. If Bruce, Cassandra, Tim, and Babs hadn't seen him, too, Dick almost would have believed that Jason had never been there at all. Dreams and reality caved together in his head when it came to Jason---it was hard to believe that he'd existed at all, alive against all odds. When he'd been desperately trying to shepherd survivors out of range of Chemo, he'd caught sight of a flash of red out of the corner of his eye. It'd only been a fever-choked glimpse of a man in a red hooded sweatshirt, but his hysterical mind had latched onto the idea that Jason had been there that terrible day. 

Dick wasn't sure if that little delusion did him more good than it did harm. On good days, he liked to imagine that Jason had stayed in the city long enough to help save people, then had left Blüdhaven to start anew---finally, with a truly clean slate. On bad days, Dick imagined that every single one of the charred bodies he'd seen in the irradiated remains of his city could have had Jason's face. 

Jason Todd, Schrödinger's cat.

Either way, Jason was gone. All that Dick had left were the jagged little pieces of his family, and they were all too far away for him to hold onto. They'd scattered, so he'd distanced himself from any landmarks that would remind him of them. 

New York was a fresh start. The new apartment was a loft. Big open space. No furniture yet aside from his bed and a few dishes, but he'd fix that sooner or later. The electricity wasn't on yet, so Dick was left to sit alone in the dark. Not a new thing for him by any stretch, but he couldn't remember a time when it'd felt quite so lonely to be alone. He had to remind himself that moving to New York had been his brilliant idea. It wasn't _supposed_ to be home. That was the whole point of it. 

When the sun set and the moon rose, fat and round over the Manhattan skyline, Dick put on his Nightwing uniform. He wasn't going to go looking for trouble, he told himself. He was just going to go for a run. He needed it. Even the vacant, dusty emptiness of his new place felt claustrophobic.

His body still rebelled from time to time. Not as often as when he'd first woken up from the three-week-long induced coma that Dr. Mid-Nite had put him under, but still frequently enough to worry him. Earlier, he'd lost one of his few glasses to a spasm; his muscles had pulled his hand into a hard claw, and the glass has fallen through his fingers. His nerves were relearning their connections, but it was a frustratingly slow and painful process. It took work.

So Dick wasn't sure if he was ready for trouble quite yet. He needed to learn the city first. Nightwing had the advantage of flexibility and sure-footedness, but knowing the terrain could be the difference between hitching a ride on a moving train and becoming a smear on the pavement. Gotham was barely recognizable after the quake, and Blüdhaven would never be the same. The cities that he'd committed to memory were gone. 

Dick stood on the edge of a rooftop and looked out into the city, trying to breathe it in. Or just _breathe_. 

"You've got a lot of fucking nerve, wearing that."

He knew that voice. It was unmistakable, smoke-roughened and deep. It was also the only warning that he got before two hundred pounds of muscle connected with his side. 

The air exploded from Dick's lungs as he hit the cement, hard. He hadn't heard him coming---he was good, and Dick was out of practice. He struggled to inhale, pinned on his back. 

"Well, I'll be." The man sat back, grinning. His big body blocked the moonlight, reducing him to a shadow with starlight lenses and a crooked smile. "I thought you were a girl from behind, and I'm the only one that gets to jack your style. Goddamn, do you ever need a haircut."

He stood, offering Dick a hand up. 

Jason.

Jason was there, and he was alive, and he couldn't even process that epiphany for a second time. He pulled in a shuddering breath.

"Jay? I thought---the bomb---I thought you were dead," Dick babbled, gesturing with both hands. "I thought I saw you, and then I---I didn't." 

"Then we're even. I saw you go down." Jason had dyed his hair black, but Dick could see the threads of snowy white roots showing in his bangs when he turned his head. "S'why I put this old thing back on."

He'd kept the Nightwing uniform he'd taken from him, though he had a proper pair of boots to wear with it now, not just his old combat boots. He looked like the real deal---like a bigger, broader version of Dick himself. Once again, he'd taken his old things and made them his own. 

Jason was much more sentimental than anyone gave him credit for. Jason was alive, and he was wearing his suit. There had been chatter about a Nightwing imitator in the area, but he'd never thought that it could be _him_.

"Wait---since you thought I was…you did it to honor my memory?"

"Sounds dumb when you say it like that." He shifted his weight, shoulders rolling. "I just figured if anyone's qualified to wear your hand-me-downs, it's me. I've got lots of practice."

The guilt was still there---would always be there, probably---but it didn't collapse his lungs like it had before. He couldn't change what happened, but he could move past it now. Somehow, Jason had. If he was wearing the suit, he was keeping to the rules.

This was how he'd mourned him. He hadn't taken revenge, he hadn't taken it as an excuse to fall off the straight and narrow, and he hadn't regressed. Jason had put on his uniform and tried to do right by his name. Dick felt guilty for making him think that he'd died, but proud of him at the same time. 

"So," Jason said, when Dick didn't make the first move. "Is this where you call me a murderer again and tell me to take the suit off, yadda yadda yadda? 'Cause I'd rather skip to the part where I flip you the bird and get back to what I was doing. Which, for the record, was fighting crime with stupid sticks."

"No," Dick said, smiling. "This isn't where I tell you to take the suit off. As much as I like the view here, I don't think we want to give anyone that much of a show."

His face went completely blank, like any trace of emotion had been slapped away. Jason's hands tensed at his sides, black and blue fingers rolling into fists. Thankfully, he knew him well enough to know that wasn't an aggressive stance---not for him, anyway. That was how he got when he couldn't quite process a situation. When his emotions overwhelmed him, he shut down and tried not to let it show. He protected himself, forever a perfect example of the hedgehog's dilemma. 

"I'm not sorry," Jason said, sounding almost confused.

"I am," Dick said, exhaling hard. "I'm never going to agree with what you did. It's not going to happen. But you're still---you're my---I've _missed_ you, Little Wing."

Finally, Jason smiled back.

"Wanna blow this popsicle stand and catch up? I mean, crime'll be here tomorrow. I have been so goddamn _good_ lately, I deserve a night off." Jason glanced at him sideways, suddenly hesitant. "I mean. Are we---?" 

Dick grabbed a fistful of his hair and dragged him down to kiss. Whatever that question was supposed to be, his answer was an unequivocal _yes._ He made sure he got the point across. 

Jason laughed, low and breathless. "Okay. Good to know." 

Dick kissed his hand, then lightly caught the tips of Jason's blue-gloved fingertips in his teeth and tugged. He pulled off his glove, eager to taste the salt warmth of his skin. It was almost like the first time, in a way: just as unexpected, just as impossible, just as electric. But instead of being quick and aggressive and needy, it was slow. Jason's kisses still had the edge of teeth, and they both grabbed and held with bruising strength, but it was slow. 

Jason was calm. Dick wasn't afraid that he'd bolt if he wasn't careful. This time, Jason had been looking for him. He'd been trying to be found. They'd figure out the apologies later. 

Jason's hand slid up the curve of his spine, then down again as he unzipped his suit to the small of his back. He peeled it away so forcefully, Dick was surprised that he didn't rip the fabric. He bunched the side of his boxer-briefs in one hand, then cut through the material with a pull of his switchblade. The tip of the knife just barely skimmed the arch of Dick's hip; his breath caught in his throat as he cut through the elastic band of his jockstrap.

"I liked those briefs," Dick said, too throaty to be a real complaint. 

"Tough luck," Jason said, tugging him free. "Should've moved faster." 

Dick dragged him deeper into the shadow the billboard cast. So much for not giving anyone a show. He couldn't really find it in him to care. 

"Missed you, Little Wing." 

"Yeah?" Jason's growl made Dick's skin tingle. _"Show_ me." 

 

*

 

The apartment didn't have electricity, but the full moon cast more than enough light to see by. Dick only had one piece of furniture in the loft---a queen-sized bed, and Jason was taking up at least two-thirds of it. 

"Good grief, Jay," Dick said, returning to bed with the pizza. The poor delivery girl had been perplexed---but not unappreciative---over him answering the door in a pair of Batman boxers and a domino mask. "Have you gotten bigger this year?"

"Maybe," he said, looking unreasonably smug. He folded his arms behind his head, rolling his hips up in an inviting thrust. "Wanna come over here and find out?" 

"I thought we agreed that you were done growing, Little Wing," he chastised, opening the cardboard box and inhaling the cheesy goodness. He'd worked up an appetite. 

"I can't help that I'm a big boy," Jason said, batting his lashes and grabbing a slice of pizza. 

Dick took him in with an appreciative hum. Yes, Jason had gotten a little bit bigger and broader. He had more hair on his chest. He'd left the last remnants of boyhood behind him. 

"I'm not letting you leave again," Dick told him, brushing his hair out of his eyes with greasy fingertips. Jason looked amused and exasperated by the fond touch, but he put up with it. "You know that, right?"

"I think I'll do whatever the hell I want to do," Jason said, his mouth full of pepperoni. He chewed, then swallowed. "But I, uh. Don't have a place in town yet, so. Figure I'll crash here for a while." 

Dick just grinned, snagging another piece before Jason could mow through most of the pizza himself. The important things hadn't changed. 

"Sure thing, Jaybird."

It didn't matter that the loft didn't have heat or electricity yet. With a warm body beside him, the new nest didn't seem nearly as empty as it'd been.


End file.
